Jessica: We can be happy without being completed by some other person can’t we?
Kate: God, I hope so.
Category: love
-
When I was 14 and had just started high school, I developed a crush on my brother’s best friend. The feeling was mutual enough that we spent four days talking on the phone in the evenings and eating lunch together at school, and I, being young and being me, dreamed up a future for us that involved going to prom together four years in a row, which of course implied that we would be together for at least that long. We weren’t even officially “going out.” On the fourth evening, he told me he didn’t want to continue our little whatever-it-was. When we got off the phone, I walked into my bathroom, fell to the floor and cried my eyes out. I felt like someone had taken a giant melon-baller and scooped out my soul. We had never even kissed. If memory serves, we never even held hands.
My heart was broken. It took six years for that particular wound to stop stinging.
What I’m trying to demonstrate with this rather embarrassing anecdote is that I tend to have very strong emotional reactions to things that other people could probably just shrug off. To put it another way, I’m kinda crazy.
Looking back, I see how silly it all was. I saw how silly it was at the time. Here’s the thing, though: I didn’t want to be obsessed with this person. I didn’t enjoy making an ass of myself when he was around. I knew that it was irrational how hurt I was over what had happened. I knew that it didn’t make any sense, that I should have been able to get over it, that it wasn’t the end of the world. But I had never felt pain like that before, like when I was crying on the bathroom floor.
I have felt pain like that many times since.
Anyway, now I’m almost 29, and my heart is broken over a guy I haven’t been involved with for almost a year. And it really feels sometimes like the fates or the gods or some mischievous imps are playing some sort of trick to keep him on my mind, to remind me how much the whole situation stinks. I removed him from my instant messenger lists, deleted him from my Facebook friends, un-favorited his OkCupid profile and have strongly considered deleting his number from my phone. Still these little things happen to constantly remind me. And today is his birthday.
And, of course, there was last night’s conversation with that guy I was in love with when I was 20. My relationship (such as it was) with K was very similar to the relationship I had with this other fellow, and so hearing that he was in love with me back then… well, it makes me feel like my soul’s been scooped out by a giant melon-baller. And it makes me want to punch someone in the face.
Because my reactions are oversized, inappropriate, irrational, unwarranted and unwanted. Because I fall in love so very easily, and so very hard. And it crushes me and it sometimes takes me years to stop hurting. Because hope might be the best of things or whatever, but it can also be a form of slow torture. I don’t want to hope that K comes to his senses and realizes he loved me all along unless he realizes it really soon. I don’t want to hope anymore. I don’t want to care anymore.
I’m more than a little unbalanced, and because love is something I have difficulty being rational about, I have a feeling that K will never want me enough to be with me. He told me he liked my enthusiasm. He said he liked my intensity. But those things are also, I’m sure, what scared him away from me. Just like that boy in high school. Just like that guy when I was 20. I can’t love without trying to be absorbed by the other person and wanting to absorb them into me. Without, as I like to put it, trying to eat their soul. K will never want to be with me, so what I want now is to be ok with that. I want to let it go, let him go, and move on.
Now that I have no choice but to be alone, I’m trying to want to be alone. I’m trying to fix whatever is wrong in me so that I don’t continue the cycle of falling in love like dry grass catches on fire and then being left with the ashes where my heart used to be. I’m trying to be good enough for myself so I don’t try to get other people to fill me up and make me whole. I’m trying, and trying, and trying, and it just hurts and hurts and hurts.
So here’s a poem:
Oh Yes, by Charles Bukowski.
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late. -
God Damn It.
About eight years ago I was in love with a boy. For many, many reasons, we weren’t destined to be together for the rest of our lives. But for one month, it was beautiful and pure and everything was wonderful and I was in love. Most sincerely and wholeheartedly in love.
And it fell apart. Like things do.
It took me… gosh… four years to get over him. Four years of thinking about him when I didn’t want to think about him. When my heart ached and I was sick of having an aching heart. I just wanted to be over him. I wanted not to care anymore. Eventually my wish came true.
We’ve communicated some in the years that have passed. Nothing too heavy. I know where he’s living and which girl he’s with and what he’s doing for money.
He instant messaged me at 3am, and I was up, so we started talking. And it seems he was in a sentimental mood. And he told me he loves me and misses me which, ok, that’s a nice thing to hear. An old friend misses me!
But then: God Damn It.
He told me that back then, all those years ago, when I loved him so purely, he loved me too. He was young, he was stupid, he didn’t know what he was doing, but he was in love with me.
Oh, and he’s sorry for hurting me.
God damn it.
-
I’m hormonal. I’m horny. But I don’t really want to be touched. I don’t want everything that comes along with being touched. I don’t want someone else’s ego. I don’t want someone asking me to stick around after, or asking if they can stay. I don’t want to have to worry about someone else’s needs and whether they’re being met. I want to be alone. But I’m lonely.
There’s no fucking point trying to make a connection with someone who doesn’t make my heart soar. Why try? Until I find someone who really gets me in the gut, I don’t want to bother. Only I’m not used to not having a someone. I’m not used to being alone with myself. Where’s my newest shiny distraction? Since the last best one is gone.
Sometimes the best thing for everyone still sucks.
-
I had my reasons, and they were good ones. I keep forgetting that.
It was almost a year ago that I sabotaged my relationship with K. And I was thinking about it the other day, remembering how it all shook out and feeling bad for my behaviour, and then I remembered: I had my reasons, and they were good ones.
I have been wishing he wanted me back. But now I remember why I acted like such a jackass: so that he would never want me back. Never. As in, not ever. I’ve been blaming him for being cold-hearted, for not wanting to be friends, for not missing me. But that was the plan, such as it was. And it worked, so, hooray.
Hooray.
I ended things, or made him end things, however you want to look at it, for a very good reason. Our relationship needed to end. Not be put on hold– I could have done that myself. I didn’t need space or time to think. I needed to be rid of K. I needed him to never want to be with me in that way ever again. And it worked.
Hooray. Ow.
-
So I’m thinking maybe I should try being alone for awhile.
I haven’t spent any real length of time not chasing after some boy or another, or in a relationship, since I was 15 years old. And while I’ve spent the past two years resolutely single, I’ve dated. I’ve chased. I’ve pined and obsessed and all that nonsense, and I need a damned break.
And since nobody compares to K, and since I haven’t stopped pining and obsessing, and since he wasn’t mine in the first place and ain’t ever coming back in any case, maybe I should stop chasing after boys until I find one who makes me feel like he did. Maybe I should hold out for someone who makes me feel like a better person when I’m around him.
We’ll see how long I can hold out. I make no promises.
-
What’s the point?
What’s the point in trying to love someone who isn’t you? No one makes me feel like you did. No one kisses quite right. No one else’s pheromones attack my brain with such fierce intensity. I can’t help it, baby, it’s chemical. It’s primal, mammalian, reptilian, whatever. It’s right, with you. How could I want anyone else?
It’s been almost a year. Could you think about forgiving me yet?
And I know there’s absolutely nothing I can do to change your mind. But consider this: when you felt like everyone was abandoning you, I stayed. I was there. I sat with you and I didn’t give you too much shit when you spent that month hardly ever touching me because of whatever was going on in your head. When you thought everyone was leaving you, I stuck around and told you I wasn’t going anywhere, for what it was worth.
And now you’ve abandoned me. Not abandoned like a kitten or a baby or something that needs your care, not quite. Abandoned, yes, like a broke-down car. An unfinished meal. An erstwhile lover. I don’t think I’m too far out-of-line when I say I think that makes you a bit of a hypocrite.
Sure, Love, I can live without you. I’ve been doing it for a long time now. I just don’t want to, and I don’t think I should have to, and I’ll take what I can get if it means I get to see you. I can live without. But why? Stop being so fucking stubborn and love me already.
-
…but you move me, honey. Yes you do.
About two years ago I had just gotten out of a yucky four-year-long relationship. I sold the engagement ring, cut off all my hair, and got a tattoo. And then I met K.
He didn’t want a girlfriend. He didn’t want anything serious. He certainly didn’t want to be monogamous. He made it clear that I wasn’t to get carried away.
But I fell head-over-heels, ass over tea kettle. Mind over matter? Anyway, I was crazy about him. He really didn’t seem to mind.
But, again, he didn’t want anything serious. Well, hell, neither did I! It was great to have someone in my life who wasn’t trying to, as I like to put it, eat my soul. We enjoyed each other’s company, and then we went home. We saw each other about twice a week, on average, for a year. And it was lovely except when it really wasn’t lovely at all.
*sigh*
He was more Clark Kent than Superman, more Edward Norton than Brad Pitt. But his kisses made me walk into walls. The way he smelled drove me crazy. I’m convinced his skin secretes an addictive chemical. And like any worthwhile addiction, it was fantastic when it was good and achingly awful when it was bad.
“…it’s like the sun shines on you, and it’s glorious. And then he forgets you and it’s very, very cold.” -from The Talented Mr. Ripley
His smile is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. Especially when he was smiling at me. These past couple of weeks, when I’ve been missing him, that’s what I’ve missed the most. That smile. How much we used to laugh. Dimples and crooked teeth, and a gleaming glint of a sparkle in his eyes.
When I said his kisses made me walk into walls, I wasn’t kidding. I’d lose my sense of balance and direction and just… stumble. Dead sober, even.
I have never in my life loved anyone the same way I loved him. I might not ever love anyone like that again. And I’m wondering how to live with that.
Ten months ago we stopped seeing each other. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, and if we have to assign blame, it would probably fall on me. I behaved rather horribly and while it seemed necessary to cause a ruckus at the time, I regret it now.
He never loved me, you see. He says he doesn’t know if he’s ever loved anyone in that way. So here’s me ridiculously in love with him, and he’s– what’s a good word– ambivalent? indifferent? heartless?– not in love with me, anyway. So after a year of this, I thought, well FUCK, Folsom, it’s been a year. If he doesn’t love me by now, he isn’t gonna ever love me. It isn’t going to change. This will always feel horribly lopsided.
I once said I’d not only give him a kidney, but I’d tear the fucking thing out myself if I had to. While this was an exaggeration, I’m pretty sure he didn’t feel anything similar for me. He always paid for my drinks, but that’s not the same thing.
So it had to end. And I wasn’t strong enough to end it myself, so I acted wretched so he’d have to end things. Every time I had tried to walk away, I found that I couldn’t. I loved him too much. I was addicted to his skin, his smile, his company. But I knew he’d have a much easier time letting go of me, so I made it real easy for him to walk away. And by Gosh, he did.
We went out for drinks a couple of times in the months after that, and it was painful, but I enjoyed seeing him. It was almost like old times, minus the naked, sweaty aspects of our former relationship. It was nice. We laughed. We smiled.
I haven’t seen him in about six months now. He got himself a bonafide girlfriend and doesn’t want to see me anymore.
I would give a kidney to see him again. If I had to, I’d even tear it out myself.
Not really.
But I might be willing to buy my own drinks this time.
-
Here’s how I did it:
- I got very drunk at his house
- I tried to fix another drink, which would have been my fourth very strong vodka & cran
- He tried to stop me from fixing another drink, which was in everyone’s best interest being that I was already plastered
- We fought over my glass
- The glass fell to the floor and broke
- I tried to clean up the shards, but I was drunk, so he wanted to do it himself
- He had to drag me, in a heap, out of the kitchen
- I put vodka directly into the bottle of cranberry juice before he could stop me
- I wandered to the bathroom and purposely cut my fingertip with a razor
- …and then smeared blood on his face like tribal paint and told him he was “a warrior now”
- For the first and last time in my life, drove home while very, very drunk
TA-DA!!!
Self-Indulgent Drivel 