Round and round we go
It's quiet. Too quiet. Things have been... odd. Aside from the various "happy mother's day!" comments over the weekend (cuz, y'know, female of the super hippy persuasion, you're going to have people assume you got those hips the hard way) and the wanting to punch a dude in the face early Sunday morning, work has presented me with this realization:
I have achieved rumor status. It appears there was (is?) a rumor floating around that I was (am?) married. My boss, the night manager, asked if there was something I should have told her and I had no idea what she was talking about. She pointed to her ring finger and I stared blankly for a second and then it dawned on me. Ohhhhhhhh.
Later she flat out asked and I got to ask who said it. I never did find out how it came up though. Hrmm. Maybe another time? I do wonder if there are other rumors. Still, I can't help but feel semi victorious that I've scored a rumor. :P
This was on the heels of one of my favorite customer-couples coming in and asking earlier in the week when they'd get to dance at my wedding. I laughed and said it'd be a while since y'know, no groom. I figured they'd laugh, too. Nope, they kind of sobered up a little and said, "But wait, I thought you had someone. Someone serious." And I had to give that smile that I don't think is as worn around the edges as it used to be and say that things didn't work out. Why not? Because he turned into a jerk. Which prompted them to offer to take out his kneecaps (like I said, they're regulars so they know my attack preference) and we laughed again.
But it was a weird week all the same.
So this leads us to Day 7: Radio Silence.
I'd planned on going in some semblance of order where this is concerned because some people might prefer a linear time line. Usually I'm one of those people, but since I've basically spent all week thinking about this whether I've really wanted to or not, I figured I might as well start with the end.
Since we're going out of order, I'll give you the condensed version of things: Off and on for ten or so years, the significant ex and I did the whole long distance relationship thing. When things were good, they were so good I'd revisit my stance on marriage and once or twice the thought of kids. When they were bad, well, it's a case of the distance working in everyone's favor at that point. A few years back, a lot of my friends seemed to choose the same two years to get married. I can think of four people off the top of my head, and there might've been more.
You might have noticed we skipped 6. Well, I can't go on to 7 until we hit Day 6: A Lie I Believed. (I tried, but it works better if we actually start here.)
ExR came down for Cassy's wedding. This I think was the third wedding of the year. Anyway, he bonded with Widget and things were going well. The last day or two before he left, we had a fairly serious talk. We'd started it years before, but this time when he left it was decided that we were going to give the relationship an actual shot. I'd get over my hangups over moving out of the house and he'd move down here and we'd find some place. Ideally it wouldn't be as festive as Cassy's house at the time with the bullet holes in the front door (yes.) but hey, if my parents could start off in a place where the possums took out the cats occasionally and you had to check before feeding them in the morning...
The point is, you start somewhere together. This wasn't the first time he'd mentioned it, but it was the first time I agreed without it being this big deal. Which then turned it into another kind of big deal, but a good sort of way.
Friends were told and then nothing much was said to them, but I remember thinking that New Year's Eve that hey, this would be our year. I'd waited out the year of never ending wedding planning and the new year would start a good year.
I jinxed myself so badly. So, so badly. But I believed it so strongly that it wasn't even a question of jinxing it. It was just going to be. Not perfect, but I was even looking forward to the weirdness that I knew would exist. I don't think I've been that blindly starry-eyed since. But in that moment, I believed we'd either have the best story ever... or we'd at least be able to walk away and say we tried our best. And I honestly thought it'd be the best story ever.
Day 7 is the moment that dream died a horrible, agonizing death. The summer after he promised he'd be back, he moved all right. He moved to an entirely different state and didn't tell me. I'm many things, but I'm not that stupid. So even as he tried to talk his way out of my unbelievable wrath, I knew full well that the future I'd seen so clearly, wanted so badly, and actually worked so hard for had died while I wasn't looking.
For whatever reason, he pulled the plug. He tried to pretend that the move didn't mean what I thought it did and then he proved it meant just that. We never officially broke up. He cheated me out of our last fight, of all the last shots and explanations and the reasons why. He said we'd talk tomorrow and then never spoke to me again. Radio silence that has lasted ever since.
He didn't fall off a cliff as he'd talk to Cass occasionally and this would drive me so crazy that I had to just stop listening whenever she'd bring it up. I'm not sure she ever realized that he really did just stop talking.
This of course led to all kinds of things, like the wondering if it had just been this incredibly pointless lie the whole time, or the awkward conversation with Mums when she assumed he'd proposed because he'd discussed the prospect with Mums (and apparently Dad) to see whether she thought he had a shot of getting me to change my mind about marriage in general. That conversation was like being hit, repeatedly, in case you wondered.
I figure you'll forgive me for cheating and using two things that changed my life in one entry, since they're so closely related.
And yes, the original plan was to wait awhile on these but like I said, weird week. :P
I have achieved rumor status. It appears there was (is?) a rumor floating around that I was (am?) married. My boss, the night manager, asked if there was something I should have told her and I had no idea what she was talking about. She pointed to her ring finger and I stared blankly for a second and then it dawned on me. Ohhhhhhhh.
Later she flat out asked and I got to ask who said it. I never did find out how it came up though. Hrmm. Maybe another time? I do wonder if there are other rumors. Still, I can't help but feel semi victorious that I've scored a rumor. :P
This was on the heels of one of my favorite customer-couples coming in and asking earlier in the week when they'd get to dance at my wedding. I laughed and said it'd be a while since y'know, no groom. I figured they'd laugh, too. Nope, they kind of sobered up a little and said, "But wait, I thought you had someone. Someone serious." And I had to give that smile that I don't think is as worn around the edges as it used to be and say that things didn't work out. Why not? Because he turned into a jerk. Which prompted them to offer to take out his kneecaps (like I said, they're regulars so they know my attack preference) and we laughed again.
But it was a weird week all the same.
So this leads us to Day 7: Radio Silence.
I'd planned on going in some semblance of order where this is concerned because some people might prefer a linear time line. Usually I'm one of those people, but since I've basically spent all week thinking about this whether I've really wanted to or not, I figured I might as well start with the end.
Since we're going out of order, I'll give you the condensed version of things: Off and on for ten or so years, the significant ex and I did the whole long distance relationship thing. When things were good, they were so good I'd revisit my stance on marriage and once or twice the thought of kids. When they were bad, well, it's a case of the distance working in everyone's favor at that point. A few years back, a lot of my friends seemed to choose the same two years to get married. I can think of four people off the top of my head, and there might've been more.
You might have noticed we skipped 6. Well, I can't go on to 7 until we hit Day 6: A Lie I Believed. (I tried, but it works better if we actually start here.)
ExR came down for Cassy's wedding. This I think was the third wedding of the year. Anyway, he bonded with Widget and things were going well. The last day or two before he left, we had a fairly serious talk. We'd started it years before, but this time when he left it was decided that we were going to give the relationship an actual shot. I'd get over my hangups over moving out of the house and he'd move down here and we'd find some place. Ideally it wouldn't be as festive as Cassy's house at the time with the bullet holes in the front door (yes.) but hey, if my parents could start off in a place where the possums took out the cats occasionally and you had to check before feeding them in the morning...
The point is, you start somewhere together. This wasn't the first time he'd mentioned it, but it was the first time I agreed without it being this big deal. Which then turned it into another kind of big deal, but a good sort of way.
Friends were told and then nothing much was said to them, but I remember thinking that New Year's Eve that hey, this would be our year. I'd waited out the year of never ending wedding planning and the new year would start a good year.
I jinxed myself so badly. So, so badly. But I believed it so strongly that it wasn't even a question of jinxing it. It was just going to be. Not perfect, but I was even looking forward to the weirdness that I knew would exist. I don't think I've been that blindly starry-eyed since. But in that moment, I believed we'd either have the best story ever... or we'd at least be able to walk away and say we tried our best. And I honestly thought it'd be the best story ever.
Day 7 is the moment that dream died a horrible, agonizing death. The summer after he promised he'd be back, he moved all right. He moved to an entirely different state and didn't tell me. I'm many things, but I'm not that stupid. So even as he tried to talk his way out of my unbelievable wrath, I knew full well that the future I'd seen so clearly, wanted so badly, and actually worked so hard for had died while I wasn't looking.
For whatever reason, he pulled the plug. He tried to pretend that the move didn't mean what I thought it did and then he proved it meant just that. We never officially broke up. He cheated me out of our last fight, of all the last shots and explanations and the reasons why. He said we'd talk tomorrow and then never spoke to me again. Radio silence that has lasted ever since.
He didn't fall off a cliff as he'd talk to Cass occasionally and this would drive me so crazy that I had to just stop listening whenever she'd bring it up. I'm not sure she ever realized that he really did just stop talking.
This of course led to all kinds of things, like the wondering if it had just been this incredibly pointless lie the whole time, or the awkward conversation with Mums when she assumed he'd proposed because he'd discussed the prospect with Mums (and apparently Dad) to see whether she thought he had a shot of getting me to change my mind about marriage in general. That conversation was like being hit, repeatedly, in case you wondered.
I figure you'll forgive me for cheating and using two things that changed my life in one entry, since they're so closely related.
And yes, the original plan was to wait awhile on these but like I said, weird week. :P