(no subject)
I broke it off.
I man’d/manned up and broke it off.
To be honest it wasn’t my actual intention.
But considering I started crying an hour before I even stepped up to his porch…my heart knew something my head had yet to accept.
It was getting worse.
I was falling in like.
But I was still trying to stay distant and removed.
Ultimately though, I realized I’d much rather break my own heart then let him do it again.
So I needed to know.
And that’s what I told him.
When I said “I can’t date you without actually dating you anymore…”
All he said was “Ok”
Followed shortly by “So do you want to just not hang out for a while?”
Sean Connery was running around Russia with Love at that moment.
“Wow” was all I could offer. Sinking disbelief.
“What I WANT is to know how…I mean these last few weeks things have been different because we’re different…how can you just do that? It literally makes my stomach hurt to think about. How do you not care? What page are you on Alan?”
“I feel differently about you then I did before, but I don’t think dating you would be a very good idea”
James Bond is attempting to gain information from a voluminous blonde woman.
“Why?”
He has no answer. I have several but let the minutes slip by silently.
“There was a time when I needed a break from you. But I thought how selfish is that? I mean just because I feel something and he doesn’t, doesn’t mean he should be punished and lose me as a friend. So we kept hanging out and it was fine and after awhile I didn’t feel anything and then things changed…YOU changed. You know the last few weeks we’ve actually been dating right?”
“Well not exactly”
“But pretty much and you had fun right?”
“Yeah.”
My breathing is steady. My body is still. It’s just background noise.
“I didn’t say we shouldn’t hang out because I didn’t want to.”
“But you said it like it would mean more to me if we didn’t”
“Lauren it’s not like if you disappeared tomorrow I wouldn’t miss you. I’d miss hanging out with you.”
Connery…James, is fighting another man in a suit.
“This is just…so stupid.”
Bond and his broad are dodging falling grenades in a flower truck. Eventually it is just him and a rifle.
I tell him I have to go.
There is no kiss goodbye, no long lingering look, just a “well, I’ll see ya” and “Bye Lauren”
It was cinematic enough.
When I got home, after crying in my car, I sat on my couch and there was a wave.
I felt relief. Like I’d lost a 185lb weight that I’d been caring around my neck.
But then later…
I wanted and need(ed) to know that it was all worth it. That it wasn’t just a complete waste of time. That'd I'd made an impact. That’d I’d change his mind about something. Anything. But all I really ended up doing was changing my own.
So at 11.00 I called.
I called because I had the desire to call an hour before.
I called because as soon as I sat down on my couch I wanted to drive back to his.
I called because I wanted to walk back through his front door twenty seconds after I’d shut it behind me.
I called because I watched a scene unfold without even turning on the TV.
He was on his laptop. Bryan was walking in. He asks about how things went with Bryan’s (current ex, could be still be or maybe is now his girlfriend again) girlfriend. Then he says, “Lauren ended things.” And they exchange some monosyllabic grunts and decide to drink. He projects about trust and relationships and blahblahblah’s himself into the bottom of his glass.
I called because it wasn’t my heart that was bruised…it was my ego. Which according to Jason, could be worse.
Perhaps when I’m ready to accept the fact that I meant nothing, that I am at the same level of all the others, I’ll get over it.
Mostly though, I called because I realized I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be “broken up”.
Do I stop watching house?
Do I stop trying new things?
Do I stop riding my bike?
Do I start running?
Do I cut/dye my hair?
Do I move out of state?
Do I get really wasted and leave long voicemails?
Do I avoid Thanksgiving?
Do I post photos of me and “hot” guys on Facebook?
Do I leave cyptic away messages up all day?
Do I hate him?
He never answered.
So now I’m crying.
At work.
I may rust.
My tears feel like acid.
But I eat nuts and bolts for breakfast.
I am not crying over him.
I am crying over humanity.
I am crying because now I won’t believe anyone the next time they say, “This is the best I’ve felt inside a women”
I’m crying because I’ll never believe/trust anything.
I am crying because this is not theatrics this is my fucking goddamn reality and I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I HATE IT.
But I can’t have the perfect body or matching toes or 10 accountable fingers.
I cannot erase the scars.
I cannot…
I’m crying because being wrong would have been so much better then being right.
Anyway, that was last Sunday night/Monday day. Now it’s Wednesday soon to be Thursday and I feel nothing. It’s like complete numbness, non-existence empathy for memories that don’t even feel real now. I don’t really feel like calling him. I don’t really feel like stalking him. I don’t really feel much of anything for him. Weird. Right? Is that supposed to mean something? I don’t want it too. Even if he’s unable to accept the fact that he had a girlfriend the last couple months, even if he’s willing to dance in and out of artificial moments superfluously without pausing to consider the reality, doesn’t mean I am. I want them to mean something. I need to hold onto something. Because I had a good time. I laughed. I had someone to bike with. I had a sparing partner. I had ridiculously good sex. I drank wine. I actually ate fish. I went to marathons. I had my own personal chief (who actually made me sick with the last meal he made…but regardless). I learned more about him. I learned more about me. He is his own cliché and I refuse to succumb to it.
All of this will probably hit me like a ton of bricks the next time I see him. Or when I finally bother cleaning my room and realize the reason it’s so dirty is because my dresser was broken and he had to help me fix it. Or when I don’t trust a single thing the next man ever says too me. Or when I want chinese at 12.30AM.
When I remember.
In the meantime, my phone just rings a lot less.