Another Break Up Story

Well, it's been kind of a shitty day.

It didn't start well, and it hasn't improved much since then, but it's also still not the end of the day, so who knows?  There's always a chance at redemption.

What happened? you ask.  Well, so many things.

First, I'm in pretty perceivable pain.  I messed up my back this morning playing volleyball, and now it hurts to move.  It hurts less when I lay down, but that's not exactly a long-term solution.  So, on top of enduring the pain until Monday, I've also got to pay $20 for a chiropractor appointment.  That might not seem like a lot of money, but when you're not getting paid and trying to cut back on expenses until the next check, unexpected co-pays aren't exactly a mood-lifter.

Neither is the snickers I just ate.  Advertisers lie.

The day started with a bad night of sleep.  I woke up in the middle of the night and then again multiple times, frustrated by my apparent inability to get comfortable and stay comfortable in a state of unconsciousness.

When I finally got up, I realized that I had no breakfast food in the house and needed to go get something to eat elsewhere.  As mentioned in a prior paragraph, I am attempting to spend less, and as such, I weighed my options for places to get food before volleyball.  Whole foods has better pastries.  Rouses has better prices.  An actual restaurant has better nutrition.  Not eating at all would be the cheapest.

In the end, I chose Rouses.  They were close, less expensive, and on the way to volleyball.  Unfortunately, they also have a terrible bakery department (at least bad croissant variety), so when what I really wanted was a chocolate croissant, I had to opt for regular (not that great) croissants and fake Nutella (way cheaper).  I should have gone to Whole Foods.

[As a side note, I also heard that you shouldn't buy Nutella because it's killing the rainforest or something.  I should read more carefully before I disseminate information like that, but it was something about palm oil shortages or...something.  Anyway, I bought the generic version hoping they're a little kinder to the earth.  Probably not.]

Anyway, then I went to volleyball, where I (first) played poorly because I haven't played in a week and was groggy and (then) played poorly because I messed up my back and had trouble moving.  Yay! Fun!

All of that could've been forgiven, though.  I could've given the day a pass for some tough luck, if it weren't for the thing that has really made the day shitty.

B and I have to have a talk.  Hopefully not a break-up talk--that would be way out of left field.  We're getting to a point in our relationship, though, where discussing nerdy things isn't enough, and we actually have to have serious conversations about ourselves and the way that we interact.

This shouldn't be scary.  This should be exciting, right?  A deepening relationship.  Investment.

But it's not.  It's super f'ing scary.  It's super f'ing scary because I'm really bad at this.  I'm really bad at vocalizing how I'm feeling because I spend most of the time trying to get up the courage to say something and the rest of the time trying to say something coherent with appropriate tone and body language.  A couple of days ago, I tried to tell him how much I like him, and I think instead I actually communicated that I thought he might cheat on me.  Which I don't actually think he would do.  And didn't want to say.

Epic fail does not begin to cover the way that went down.

So today we're apparently talking about something, and I'm terrified because who knows what he'll end up taking from all the incoherent mumbling and round-about speak that leaks out of my lips?  How terrified?  Well, I just spent almost two hours watching Drive Me Crazy (that 90s movie with Melissa Joan Hart about the guy next door) to avoid thinking about it.

Thank goodness I have therapy on Wednesday.  This session is gonna be a doozy.

Unfortunately, you can't run from something forever.  (Well, I mean, you could, but it's not exactly a recommended tactic.)  So, off I go.  Wish me luck.  Hopefully my Godzilla foot will stay well away from my mouth this time around.

[5 hours later]

Well, he broke up with me.  Like I said, straight out of left field.

I keep thinking that maybe I missed something, you know.  Maybe there were signs, and I missed them.  But, even though I'm only a few hours out, I don't think I did.  I mean, hell, I drove across the lake with him last night to meet an old friend of his.  If he was going to break up with me, why not spare me the introduction?

I guess--now that I don't care what the f*** he thinks about this blog--I can give more detail than I've allowed myself in the last two months.

The thing is, I must've had some idea it was going to be bad.  A couple of hours before we met up, he sent me a text message about him meeting up with his parents to have coffee and then this text: "I've been having a bad day.  I want to talk to you about something you said the other night."

When I showed up at his house after I finished writing the first part of this blog, we went through the usual "how was your day" spiel before he gave me a massage where my back was hurting.

It would have been a really sweet gesture, except that I was trying not to cry the whole time because I was so terrified of this conversation that we were about to have.

Finally, I sat back and said, "So, what did you want to talk about?"

I couldn't even look him in the eye.

"What do you think I want to talk about?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"Do you think I'm as invested in this as you are?" he asked.

"I hope so.  But I don't know.  My perception of others' feelings has been wrong in the past."

He then proceeded to spend the better part of a half hour waffling and leaving sentences unfinished.  And I spent the better part of it letting quiet tears roll down my cheeks.  He eventually looked up and got me Kleenex.  I almost refused it; why did he seem so surprised that I was crying?  Did I really mean so little to him?

After he finished his spiel and there was a period of silence, I broke in.  "I'm confused," I said.  "I don't understand what you're trying to say."

He talked some more, but to sum it up for you, what he was too much of a coward to say was: "I'm just not that into you.  I think we should break up."  Instead, I had to say those words for him: "So, what I'm hearing is that you're not that into it."  You know how much it hurts to have to break up with yourself?

"So I suppose this means I'm going to Tennessee by myself, huh?" I asked.

"Don't think about that right now," he countered.

I think that's about the time I started to get mad.

"Don't think about it?" I asked, my volume rising.  "I spent $500 on a hotel, and it's non-refundable.  What am I supposed to do?  Sit in my room for 3 days and cry?"

He didn't answer.  Instead, he went on to say (again) that he didn't know what he was feeling, he was confused.  Either that "indescribable thing" wasn't there or he wasn't letting himself feel it.  "This might be a mistake." he said (um, hello? duh), "but I don't want to wait until 3 months to have this conversation."

"So, we're done, right?" I was furious that he wouldn't just say it.  Should I cut my own head out of that picture you have of us on your desk, too?

He didn't respond.

"In that case, I think I'll leave," I said.  And I got up, took my pillow from his room, and I went to leave.

"Wait," he said.  "Can I say one more thing?"

"Sure," I said, my voice tinged with anger and sarcasm.  I sat down next to him.

"I'm really sorry blah blah blah blah blah..." I can't even finish quoting him.  I was so mad by this point.  Even madder when his eyes started to get teary.

"That doesn't make me feel better," I told him point-blank when he finished talking.

"What will make you feel better?" he asked.

"Nothing," I answered.  "You just broke up with me.  It's going to hurt."

I stood up, and I walked out.

Actually, he called my name repeatedly, almost pleading with me.  "I don't want to leave it like this."

"How do you want to leave it?" I asked, from the bottom of his staircase, almost shouting.  "You just broke up with me.  You don't get to make yourself feel better.  I'm not going to feel better talking to you.  It's going to hurt, and then I'm going to be okay."

And then I actually walked out the door and proceeded to burst into tears.  I called a friend and went over to his house to talk about it and get a hug.  He and another friend let me talk and made me laugh.  My sister offered to beat him up and teepee his car (since it's going to rain tonight, she said, and it'll get gross).  My best friend called me and let me vent/cry.


And the thing is, what makes me angry, angrier even than the fact that he was too much of a coward to own up to his feelings earlier, angrier even that he didn't respect me enough to simply tell me he wanted to break up instead of forcing me to pull it out of him, what makes me angriest is that I loved him and I miss him and the person I really want to talk to right now is him.  That's what hurts the most.

So, I've been knocked back to start.  It's the first time I've ever been dumped (weird, I know), but I can now say with complete authority that while the surprise element and lack of control sucks, I don't have to feel guilty or second-guess my choice like I did when I broke up with guys in the past.  Because I didn't have a choice in the first place.




Before I hit "publish," I want to thank all of the people who made my day a little better by threatening to beat up B and calling him the mean names I couldn't bring myself to say.  Also, a big thanks to my friend/pseudo-brother J who's going to come to Tennessee with me to make sure I don't just cry in my room for three days straight.  You're the best.