I'm mean.
When life gives me lemons....
I sprinkle them with sugar...
and then let them sit on the counter and watch them rot until I can't bear the smell anymore so I throw it away to the shock of everyone.
I am no longer engaged. I knew it was coming since before we ever even got engaged, but the security of the ideal of marriage mixed with the fact that he is a super lovely person who would do anything in the world for me mixed with other strange and confusing emotions and psychologies I haven't quite come to reconcile with... somehow made me pretend that I could constrict myself to a very narrow idea and framework of what I need in a relationship.
It was poisonous, and as we went on and on living together I felt more squashed and conflicted and the more he loved me and the more he tried to make me happy the more scared I got. Escalating and escalating until...
the catalyst:
I've been secretly lusting over one of my supervisors at work since I started the job. He's the botanist and for most of the summer I haven't spoken more than 5 words to him at work on the rare occasion that he would go out in the field with the rest of the crew. Yet somehow I formed this very strong and deep attraction for the man and apparently he had done so with me as well.
On one of the rare occasions he asked me and two of the other crew if we'd be interested in going to a music fest in Sewanee that he was involved with. We all agreed to go but it was a camping thing and I don't have any camping gear other than a sleeping bag. So, he said no big deal he had an extra one but the conversation went a bit to the gutter from there, as most conversations in our department do... so still no big deal, but intuitively I felt like there was a more serious tone of hope connected to these jokes we started making.
Originally the plan was for Jeremy to go to Sewanee with me, because it was a bluegrass thing and I wanted to show him off and I'm sure he wanted a chance to show off too. At the last minute he got called to go on tour for the weekend and I ended up going to Sewanee by myself.
The night of the festival I got to talk more with... we'll call him K for now...
I was sitting on the edge of a bluff by myself and thinking how scared I was and how badly I didn't want to get married... that my heart belongs in the mountains and it deserves to roam and explore... how I hate the city and the lights and the neighbors and the roads and the cars and the money and the false order and trying to keep up the ideals of what it means to love someone and to wear a ring on my finger and how it felt like it weighed 8,000 pounds...
and he walked up. He found me in the forest and sat next to me and we talked for a brief while about things totally unrelated to what I was thinking about, but he found me later that night too and we drifted to the outer fringe of the forest until he took my hand a little hesitantly.... waited... then he put his arms around my waist and hugging him I kissed his neck and he put his hands in my hair and I felt lovely and sweaty with the southern humidity with the Basil Hayden in my hand pointing anywhere but back home and my curls danced in the heat and my shirt stuck to my skin and we shared a cigarette of handmade something or other that smelt so good and so smooth.
I woke up to rain hitting the tent the next morning. I curled up next to his back and his indian toned smooth skin. Waking up he asked me if I wanted to go to his house and get some sleep there. I said yes and looking out the tent I saw the valley from the bluff and the rain coming down and meeting with the fog rising up from the hollers and I had never felt so at ease and so at home. The feeling just coursed through every filament of tissue and lighted up the synapses with happiness!!
I followed him in a torrential downpour to his house... lovely and shaded in the forest off a dirt road near the plateau's edge and I fell asleep in his bed in a loft washed with the green of the shading trees and morning light in his arms.
And now:
I didn't want to tell Jeremy because he doesn't deserve to be hurt like that and it wasn't his fault at all. It was my own and it was a product of trying to deceive myself and be something i wasn't for him.
I avoided the house for a while and stayed with my parents. The one night I did spend with him I felt awful and couldn't bring myself to make love to him as a liar. I broke it off immediately. I told him I was scared and I wasn't ready. A week later I gave him his ring back.
He's been on tour mostly but he knows there's something wrong. He keeps pressing me because he knows... knew... I had left my phone at home one day and he was suspicious because I was paying more attention to it than usual, so he investigated and found messages from K... the lovers laments and stanza's in a cheap digital format... the quill pin of the times.
He never said anything though and was trying to comfort me about breaking it off with him, so I finally couldn't lie to him anymore and told him the catalyst of me being scared (because being scared WAS the truth, just 1 part of it.) He said he knew. He's torn up and I'm torn up and I feel like I've killed someone and been killed.
I'm happy in this strange noncommital relationship I'm having with K, but I still haven't gotten the wounds to quit bleeding from Jeremy. There's a lot involved in this feeling, but the two strongest emotions are: I know I made a mistake and hurt someone that I did love deeply who also loved me... and I'm glad I did it.
So, judge me as you might. There it is.
I sprinkle them with sugar...
and then let them sit on the counter and watch them rot until I can't bear the smell anymore so I throw it away to the shock of everyone.
I am no longer engaged. I knew it was coming since before we ever even got engaged, but the security of the ideal of marriage mixed with the fact that he is a super lovely person who would do anything in the world for me mixed with other strange and confusing emotions and psychologies I haven't quite come to reconcile with... somehow made me pretend that I could constrict myself to a very narrow idea and framework of what I need in a relationship.
It was poisonous, and as we went on and on living together I felt more squashed and conflicted and the more he loved me and the more he tried to make me happy the more scared I got. Escalating and escalating until...
the catalyst:
I've been secretly lusting over one of my supervisors at work since I started the job. He's the botanist and for most of the summer I haven't spoken more than 5 words to him at work on the rare occasion that he would go out in the field with the rest of the crew. Yet somehow I formed this very strong and deep attraction for the man and apparently he had done so with me as well.
On one of the rare occasions he asked me and two of the other crew if we'd be interested in going to a music fest in Sewanee that he was involved with. We all agreed to go but it was a camping thing and I don't have any camping gear other than a sleeping bag. So, he said no big deal he had an extra one but the conversation went a bit to the gutter from there, as most conversations in our department do... so still no big deal, but intuitively I felt like there was a more serious tone of hope connected to these jokes we started making.
Originally the plan was for Jeremy to go to Sewanee with me, because it was a bluegrass thing and I wanted to show him off and I'm sure he wanted a chance to show off too. At the last minute he got called to go on tour for the weekend and I ended up going to Sewanee by myself.
The night of the festival I got to talk more with... we'll call him K for now...
I was sitting on the edge of a bluff by myself and thinking how scared I was and how badly I didn't want to get married... that my heart belongs in the mountains and it deserves to roam and explore... how I hate the city and the lights and the neighbors and the roads and the cars and the money and the false order and trying to keep up the ideals of what it means to love someone and to wear a ring on my finger and how it felt like it weighed 8,000 pounds...
and he walked up. He found me in the forest and sat next to me and we talked for a brief while about things totally unrelated to what I was thinking about, but he found me later that night too and we drifted to the outer fringe of the forest until he took my hand a little hesitantly.... waited... then he put his arms around my waist and hugging him I kissed his neck and he put his hands in my hair and I felt lovely and sweaty with the southern humidity with the Basil Hayden in my hand pointing anywhere but back home and my curls danced in the heat and my shirt stuck to my skin and we shared a cigarette of handmade something or other that smelt so good and so smooth.
I woke up to rain hitting the tent the next morning. I curled up next to his back and his indian toned smooth skin. Waking up he asked me if I wanted to go to his house and get some sleep there. I said yes and looking out the tent I saw the valley from the bluff and the rain coming down and meeting with the fog rising up from the hollers and I had never felt so at ease and so at home. The feeling just coursed through every filament of tissue and lighted up the synapses with happiness!!
I followed him in a torrential downpour to his house... lovely and shaded in the forest off a dirt road near the plateau's edge and I fell asleep in his bed in a loft washed with the green of the shading trees and morning light in his arms.
And now:
I didn't want to tell Jeremy because he doesn't deserve to be hurt like that and it wasn't his fault at all. It was my own and it was a product of trying to deceive myself and be something i wasn't for him.
I avoided the house for a while and stayed with my parents. The one night I did spend with him I felt awful and couldn't bring myself to make love to him as a liar. I broke it off immediately. I told him I was scared and I wasn't ready. A week later I gave him his ring back.
He's been on tour mostly but he knows there's something wrong. He keeps pressing me because he knows... knew... I had left my phone at home one day and he was suspicious because I was paying more attention to it than usual, so he investigated and found messages from K... the lovers laments and stanza's in a cheap digital format... the quill pin of the times.
He never said anything though and was trying to comfort me about breaking it off with him, so I finally couldn't lie to him anymore and told him the catalyst of me being scared (because being scared WAS the truth, just 1 part of it.) He said he knew. He's torn up and I'm torn up and I feel like I've killed someone and been killed.
I'm happy in this strange noncommital relationship I'm having with K, but I still haven't gotten the wounds to quit bleeding from Jeremy. There's a lot involved in this feeling, but the two strongest emotions are: I know I made a mistake and hurt someone that I did love deeply who also loved me... and I'm glad I did it.
So, judge me as you might. There it is.