personally, well, i've gone on and on and on and on about that. i can't stop thinking about the topic...but the topic also exhausts me. spent a good deal of time in conversation with smash today, which was odd...to say the very least. he went to great lengths to tell me how little the Region Rat means to him while summarily stating that it was "none of my business" (which it's not, honestly)...but the notes from the conversation were enlightening...in a tragic and sad sort of way.
professionally I'm on a rope swing between mountains and the best that i can do is hold on and keep breathing. i will try to work harder but i am not sure it's possible...and i'll try to untangle this mindfuck of authority that has me terrified to do anything and terrified not too. going into meetings is frightening, half of what she says are half truths and complete untruths...but trying to point that out results in more abuse. and more threats. i have notes from meetings regarding things i should be doing and three weeks later have notes stating the exact opposite. i am not sure what has caused this ire...but if i could change it...i would. if it was something i could apologize for...i would...in a heartbeat. anything to stop this drowning feeling i have when i go to work, at a job i actually love, for a company i adore...and get beaten down and chipped away...
...and then to have the same thing happening to me personally...
my mother describes it as "open-kimono" and thus, throughout my life, i have adopted that phrase.
what this means is...i have very few secrets. know me...know my life. the good, the bad, the stupid...i probably have admitted my flaws to people who should know nothing about them...i am at times just one big ball of TMI...and it's something i think about.
the only secret i managed to keep over the past few months is that smash and i were spending so much time together. that we texted almost non-stop, no matter what hemisphere he was in. that he was my confidant in everything that was going on with me professionally.
...oh and that we were sleeping together again...managed to leave that part out of conversations as well.
as my mother and every other mother in the world has said "if something has to be a secret, then it's not something you should be involved with." mothers of the world...you are correct. (side note: i find, annoyingly so...that my mother was right with alarming accuracy...like 99% of the shit she told me growing up turns out to be true...which is TOTALLY annoying. but then again, i was raised by probably one of the best women in the world...she rocks motherhood like a hurricane, so it's not surprising that she'd be right)
the hard part is where i am now...in order to heal the wound in my heart i really need to talk about it with those that matter to me.
the really hard part is that i sort of have to "catch them up" and then deal with their shock and anger at me that i let this all happen in the first place.
i told B and Emcee MC recently. they are very non-judgy, put a plan in place...here's a rope let's get pull you out of the hole sort of friends...The Sly Kitten is like that too. now goes the painful process in which i tell my mother, sister and the rest of the world that i'm not as smart as i pretend to be and that i was, very much, hiding things from them that i should not have been.
Emcee MC took it in stride and never missed a beat. If I was surprising her, she wasn't letting on...and i could just be what i was when called her...Hurt. Sad. Upset. Vindictive...Emcee MC is full of good advice and she's the first one to admit that she has a hard time taking her own advice. On the phone...she let me throw it all out there and then pulled me back in...
The Sly Kitten is, well, The Sly Kitten will just never judge me. Possibly spending 36 hours a day together while we were young and living in Bruxelles... probably because that is just the sort of person she is...the night my husband left me and i went running away, trying to be anywhere but my own home...it was Kitten that i called. At 26 years old, she was the one person i could think of that would just be there...simply by being there. no advice, no words of wisdom...just there. She is the closest thing I've ever experience to completely unconditional friendship. We can not talk for 5 years and have not talked for 5 years, but in those moments, when I needed her...The Sly Kitten will be there there...with a drink...a hug...a weapon...an alibi...whatever it takes.
B was disappointed in me and he didn't mince his words. he did, however, tell me what i needed to hear...and his words hold some weight, since we've gone back and forth at pulling each other out of holes in recent memory. he might have been just as disappointed that i kept the secret in the first place...because i'm just NOT a secret keeper.
he said he had his suspicions when i told him i was at smash's show and mentioned that i'd been over at a hotel that is not in the chain that i work for. he's a smart one, that B...he put 2+2 together and figured out that i'd been over at the hotel with smash. he chided me for being at the show...asked what i was doing at the hotel...and he knows me well enough to know when i'm skipping over key details. dammit.
i brushed it all off...to anyone that asked i said that i couldn't bring myself to spend so many months that we were still sharing a lease in acrimony and that our friendship was purely an offshoot of that...
...and that's truly where it started...how it wound back around to us being the essentially back in the same relationship we had been in...well...that part sort of got away from me.
it wasn't intentional...i tried to explain to b. i didn't tell people because i didn't want to hear about it...because i knew that it was bad news.
familiarity really killed me here...that and overall weakness. and love. i can't forget love...because love brought me here and love landed me here and love is probably the only thing that is going to keep me sane as i walk away.
not the love of smash...which proved to be as useless as i always knew it would be...but the love of my friends and family...who are all about to be pissed and disappointed in me right now...
there is a certain amount of humility coming with this. admitting that i let someone horrible back in my life and that it took, again, a brilliant explosion of color and pain to re-focus everything. to learn again what i already knew...
it's the 26th of january and a month ago i had just opened $300 headphones, a christmas gift from smash. i was talking to him from the other side of the world...while he told me he couldn't wait to get home and see my new car...we were talking about movies we wanted to watch and things we wanted to do.
Three weeks ago I was picking him up at the airport, fresh from Australia. In a snowstorm we tried out my 4 wheel drive. We went out to dinner and we woke up at 5 am and ate "breakfast nachos". We did normal stuff...
...is it any wonder i got confused?
...i'm learning to live again...and it's killing me.
but in the sweet words of B...who took my trespasses in the stride i would expect..."i'm here and you can count on that. i'm probably the only person you know who answers their phone at 4 am...and i don't care if you're crying...or yelling...or just whispering. hell, you don't even have to talk...just stop isolating yourself..."
"and go pour a whiskey or something...you need a drink."
so i'll have to own my own downfall and approach this with grace...keep moving...keep dancing...
this is not conjecture. It has been well documented over the years that I can (and will) make a mule look agreeable. It's a blessing and a curse.
and to answer your question, there is no correlation between being stubborn and actually getting ones way...being incredibly stubborn is actually only truly useful if you're doing something somewhat meaningless, like putting together a 1000 piece puzzle. On a day to day basis, I'd give my stubborn flair a 4 for it's overall helpfulness in my life.
i also happen to place a lot of faith in universal signs. While I can also generally prove that my stubborn flair injects itself and i have been caught ignoring very obvious signs...I can also say i take moments when the universe hands you the clue phone very very seriously.
which brings me to the moment i was pulling off the exit on my home from my Region Rat Rendezvous. At the exact moment that i tripped up my bluetooth and my streaming spotify, the song "Say something" began on a local radio station.
i never listen to radio.
But in that exact moment, the universe sent me a very clear sign to forgo all attempts to be stubborn, slice my pride...and...give up.
The sentiment of giving up is powerful. We are programmed to "never give up". It's preached to us in elementary math classes and high school soccer games. To work harder, to work smarter. If at first you don't succeed, try try again.
To give up, to say "there is no more 'try' here. there is nothing more to explore, no more opportunity."
It's earth shatteringly humbling. Akin to be cut off at the knees and then asked to run a marathon.
But to give up on a person. To stand, with your feet in the snow, and realize that you are not just giving up on an idea, but an entire person. To stand there, in the cold but not cold, staring into the blue eyes of someone whom you've fallen for so many times it's physically painful and to look for imperfection. Watching his lips form words i knew were lies, but to still be vaguely fascinated at watching them form.
Grasping at straws while i look at the dimple in his chin, the scars left from his old eyebrow ring.
Staring at cowlicks that no product in the world could tame and to think in my head about where HE was last night, who's hand he was reaching for in his sleep. I thought of the mole on his back i'd been begging him to get checked out and all the words i wanted to say...
To realize for all that...the only option truly is...to give up on an entire person.
It's tragic.
To quote the song, I AM sorry i couldn't get to Smash. I am sorry that I could not be enough. That craigslist and backpages and slutty girls from the region were and are still a necessary part of his life.
There is so much regret there, so much humility...to admit to the world it was all over your head. That no matter how hard you paddled, your canoe was just never going to reach the shore. You would forever be treading water and slowly sinking.
I'm giving up on you. I'm giving up. I'm the most stubborn person I know and i'm giving up.
I'm the person who stood with you, under the hood of the jeep, changing a car battery with a metric socket set, pliers and a crescent wrench. No matter how many times you attempted to walk back inside the shop, return the socket wrenches and tell me that it couldn't be done...i insisted it could be done. and it was done. we argued like two wet cats under the hood of the car, but we teamed up and we later we drove off in the jeep with a new battery, installed completely with tools that should never have worked.
it was me who wrestled a Marshall half stack down a full flight of steps, got it into the car and to Chicago Fretworks to get it fixed for you one Christmas...even when i should have given up on that project purely because it was actually stupid, i didn't give up...and on the night of my birthday, you serenaded me with your newly fixed amp.
For all the times that i was stubborn enough to make things work and stupid enough to swallow my pride...now...i'm finding it necessary to be humble enough to just give up. To throw in the towel...
to not just give up on you as a boyfriend and as a friend...but to literally give up on you...you as a person. To give up on anything positive you have done or will do and relinquish all hope of who you could be...to walk away from the past 5 years of my life as a giant lesson in learning to love and a point by point rationale as to why i should trust myself, my gut, my insticts.
You're the one that i loved...and i'm saying goodbye.
mostly...i'm totally pissed at myself because I believed what I knew wasn't true.
mostly...i'm mad at me because the worst had already happened...i was already healing...i was already better...
it wasn't about "getting back together" that was never going to happen. I could never tell my mother, my sister, my best friends or really ANYONE that Smash and I were spending time together again. That we were sleeping together again.
Because sleeping with someone whom you ALREADY know solicits transvestites on Craigslist, that you've already seen through one drug problem, who you already know is a porn addict...someone who has already betrayed your trust and cheated and lied...
well, sleeping with that person again would be idiotic...right?
because, in case you missed the memo, it is.
but then you're there and he's just picked you up from the airport and tells you how great you look...or he shows up at your house with exactly what you need, exactly when you need it...or he sends you flowers on an otherwise dismal birthday...
and you forget...
or not really forget...because you can't forget. You can't erase the pictures in your head...but you start to downplay, to rationalize...
you start to make it all make sense.
he's saying the right things and doing the right things and calling you from the other side of the world to tell you how much he misses you. you know it's bullshit..he's never missed one thing a day in his life...but maybe you're dealing with a difficult situation in another area of life.
and he is familiar. his movements are engrained in your memory. without thinking, you can trace the outline of his form on the other side of the bed and when you roll over, you know exactly where he is and exactly what it feels like when he reaches for your hand in his sleep.
in your head, you know all the "i love yous and i miss you's" are bullshit. you know, because you've heard them. it didn't stop him from the girl in texas, the porn websites, the austrialian girl, the craigslists ads or any of the other times you've discovered, much to your embarrassment; that the love of your life...loves himself more than he could ever love you.
and there you are saying yes, but meaning no. saying go and meaning stop. echoing his sentiments although you know you are the only one in the conversation not lying...
you're not dumb enough to believe it, but not strong enough not too.
you're foolish.
foolish girls end up sad girls...you've been sad a lot.
He wasn't answering my texts and i hadn't heard back from a legit question.
I knew he was there.
My intuition did not disappoint me...neither did the white pages, which quickly provided the address of where i needed to go.
I'm not sure what I went to see or furthermore, why at 5 am, i was convinced that I needed to go see it.
Strangely, I knew she'd be trouble for me. She looked the part. I'm not certain I know what "the part" is, but I knew she was it. She'd cause havoc in my life.
But I knew.
It was this knowledge that brought me to 90/94 at dawn, piloting myself towards something i didn't want to see, but knew i had to see.
Strangely, I didn't feel the anxious/out breath feeling i've felt before when these things have happened with Smash. It's sadly, not the first time or the second that I've caught him in lies you could walk through. (And if I was reflecting on myself right now, I'd probably have to ask myself what sort of moron I AM for accepting this. You teach people how to treat you and in so many ways, i taught him i was a doormat, but I'm not...thats for another day)
What I don't want to admit is that we had an agreement. We've had one for the past few months. Because i'm weak, because i'm a doormat, because given the choice of being vulnerable to someone new or hurting myself with something familiar, i chose the familiar. But we had an agreement..
As the sun is rising, I'm bolting across stretches of highway, with a dozen eggs sitting shotgun. I'm not sure what I was planning on doing with the eggs. But i rationalized that i needed to toss them either way and I was giving myself options.
Soon I was pulling off on a familiar exit (at this point, every exit on 65 is somewhat familiar) a series of turns later, there it was, in her driveway.
His car. Agreement violated. I can't say I was surprised. Humiliated (again) Sad (again) but I can't say surprised.
I sat there, while the sun rose, with my dozen eggs, tears streaming down my face Big, fat, ugly tears. Staring at his car, in the driveway of a girl who, by his own words was a "tramp" whom "he didn't know that well, but seemed slutty" I knew she was of questionable morals, I have friends from the town where she lives. Also, because I had seen the "videos" she had sent to Smash. Videos that someone who works with children should not be making, videos that make me want to teach every little girl in the world why sexting is a bad idea.
but i had no idea what to do.
The neighbor, who came out to see if i was okay (Hoosier hospitality for you) told me to park in her driveway and explained how this was not the first time she'd seen a car pull up in the morning and that it seemed the cars in the driveway were different every night. I wasn't exactly sure what to make of that information. But a little old lady walking down the street with a dog said basically the same thing. I suppose that means something.
but figured that, for the second time this year, i'd need to get myself tested.
but there i sat, palming one of the eggs...with the radio on. The words went wooshing by my ears.
and then he was walking to the car.
and boy, was he surprised by my greeting.
Smash did what he always does...which is attempt to deny everything. however, as we were standing in the driveway of another woman, the evidence was on my side. He was furious, he was embarrassed, he was likely terrified that she was going to hear my words, which were damning.
words were exchanged, tears were shed.
in the end, i followed him back out of indiana, we drove together, covering the miles that would separate us. I listened to the same song over and over and over again, while new tears covered old tears and created a sticky mess on my cheeks.
I looked at the car i've driven so many miles, in several different states. I thought about the trips we took when smash still lived in california and other places we went together.
I thought about how horrible i felt right now.
i thought about that my time with this in my life needed to be over. It's needed to be over, it was over. someone put another dime in the juke and it roared back to life. someone should have unplugged it.
we came up to the turnoff for me to return to the city and him to his parents house (another story for another time) and i switched lanes. I looked over at him while he cut down the highway, from the turnoff i watched his rooftop as it faded over the horizon.
I cried, for what? for what i lost? i never had it.
for what might have been? more pain?
i cried as the skyline grew larger in front of me and sweet home chicago welcomed me. i cried as i thought that my entire life had changed from a highway.
i pulled into my garage and finally threw the eggs away.
My New Years Resolution (if you believe in that sort of thing) is to blog once a week. By my own metric, I'm a week behind.
It's not that I don't think of things that I'd like to type out...or make notes and repeat them in my head over and over again...it's that when I get home and try to type...the careful thoughts I have fly out the window and I stare at a blank screen...and I'm powerless.
Smash and I had been getting along for a pretty solid 4 months or so. It was horrible. I've felt like I was lying to everyone and my mother...truthfully, it all started because I didn't want the drama...but in the middle, somehow it managed to create more drama.
Life is funny that way.
At press time, it's been a long...long emotional day. I'll save that for another post...since I'm already behind and need to catch up.
I'm going to fall asleep and it will be fitful...full of colorful dreams that won't go away and I'm sure I'll wake up sweating. I'm so certain of this fact i've decided to hold off on my shower until the morning, to save time. I'm also certain that I'm going to wake up feeling no more rested, no less sad and so more in control of my inner and out life than I do at this point.
So why bother sleeping
Simply put? My staff deserves me to sleep tonight, to not be a complete basket case when I get to the hotel. The deserve my emotions to be as in check as I can make them.
I might cry tomorrow, but I'll make it through the day...and then another and another and another.
i've felt pretty helpless lately.