1. You will always have my heart. I may end up giving away tiny pieces of it some time way down the road but the sweet spot will always belong to you. Remember to cradle it in your gentle hands and try not to crush it.
2. I learned so much from you - some good, some bad. Creatively, artistically, I probably wouldn’t be where I am without you. I just wish you could have shared in what that resulted in along the way and not chosen to leave me standing in the spotlight alone.
3. This will be better for both of us in the long run. You will find someone who fills that void and that requirement that somehow I seemed to miss as the years went along. I thought I was along for one ride, you apparently had a different e-ticket in mind.
4. I’m sorry we never had children. I think they could have been the best of both of us -- and I think that’s a pretty staggering thought.
5. I wish I could tell you what I wanted you to be. Somehow, though, the adjectives didn’t seem to fit when I tried them on you. Maybe I should have given you the chance to try them on and see how they fit.
SIDE NOTE: I hate loud, obnoxious self-important foreign people (Euro-trash, mostly) who have to show us how important they are by the volume of their annoying voices. You are nobody, if you have to make us look at you. And, dude, your badly dyed, long curly-ass, 1980’s “ain’t I cool Euro-trash” long haired Kennyt-G look make you look like an ass. And sit down and quite walking around, talking in that silly accent and showing us how big your dick is. It’ll never be as big as mine.
6. I miss you every single day.
7. I wish you could see who I am now and who I am becoming. I’m so excited about my future and I just wish it could have included you.
8. We’re not going to be friends. It’s not possible. Too much pain, too much hurt, too much of us that is still connected. We can work together, we can socialize, we can be in the same room. But chatty coffees and dinners at Georgios are not going to happen.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Found my broken heart...
I came home from karaoke with the boys tonight, made some tea then sat down on the couch. And what did I find there? My broken heart. Okay, so maybe that’s a little melodramatic but that’s the truth. I found the broken heart that I’ve been hiding underneath all of the smiles, all of the false “I’m okay’s”, under all of the many distractions I create so that people won’t feel uncomfortable around my pain. I hide it, cover it, bury it with whisky (thanks, AJ) but it’s still there, lurking the corners of my life, waiting for me to not be paying attention and then, BAM, it bitch-slaps me from out of nowhere.
I knew that leaving wouldn’t be easy, that’s why I didn’t do it earlier. You don’t walk away from all those years together without a butt-load of pain regardless of which side of the leaving you’re on. It’s dark and ugly and more difficult than words can express. So we smile and we assure others that there’s nothing wrong.
But it’s all wrong. Sleeping on a friend’s couch for four weeks. Throwing out 16 years of memories. Storing what’s left in a 5 x 9 room with a red lock on it, to try to make it not so dreary. Losing the one home I’ve had in my adult life for more than a year. Losing the man I thought I was going to grow old with and share the last years of my life with.
Tonight (or actually this morning, since it’s 3 AM), I’m not sure I can make it through tomorrow without him. I’m not sure I can get up out of bed and go through my day without him. I’m not sure I can go through another hour without him right now. The pain is so tangible, I’m sure you can see the rend in my heart right through my clothes, through my sternum, all the way through the variety of layers of crap I have tried to cover it up with. Bit it wins out in the end and surfaces against my will, like those burrowing critters in “Tremors.” Except mine have not yet reached the canyon where they leap unknowingly to their deaths.
Tonight, it’s not feeling like a mid-life crisis, it’s feeling like the end of a life. And it is, in a way. The life we created together, the life we imagined we would have in 10, 20, 30 years. The life I took away from him so suddenly. The life I left behind when we shut the apartment door for the last time.
So I’ll try to sleep now, try to get through tomorrow without crumbling, try to put all these feelings back into the little compartments where they are kept. And put the smile back on, cover up the gaping hole in the middle of my chest and sop up the bloody feelings with the remnants of my life. Then we’ll see if I can make it through the weekend, then next week, then the move. After that, we’ll have to see.
I knew that leaving wouldn’t be easy, that’s why I didn’t do it earlier. You don’t walk away from all those years together without a butt-load of pain regardless of which side of the leaving you’re on. It’s dark and ugly and more difficult than words can express. So we smile and we assure others that there’s nothing wrong.
But it’s all wrong. Sleeping on a friend’s couch for four weeks. Throwing out 16 years of memories. Storing what’s left in a 5 x 9 room with a red lock on it, to try to make it not so dreary. Losing the one home I’ve had in my adult life for more than a year. Losing the man I thought I was going to grow old with and share the last years of my life with.
Tonight (or actually this morning, since it’s 3 AM), I’m not sure I can make it through tomorrow without him. I’m not sure I can get up out of bed and go through my day without him. I’m not sure I can go through another hour without him right now. The pain is so tangible, I’m sure you can see the rend in my heart right through my clothes, through my sternum, all the way through the variety of layers of crap I have tried to cover it up with. Bit it wins out in the end and surfaces against my will, like those burrowing critters in “Tremors.” Except mine have not yet reached the canyon where they leap unknowingly to their deaths.
Tonight, it’s not feeling like a mid-life crisis, it’s feeling like the end of a life. And it is, in a way. The life we created together, the life we imagined we would have in 10, 20, 30 years. The life I took away from him so suddenly. The life I left behind when we shut the apartment door for the last time.
So I’ll try to sleep now, try to get through tomorrow without crumbling, try to put all these feelings back into the little compartments where they are kept. And put the smile back on, cover up the gaping hole in the middle of my chest and sop up the bloody feelings with the remnants of my life. Then we’ll see if I can make it through the weekend, then next week, then the move. After that, we’ll have to see.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
What to do with my hands...
I was out the other night with one of my favorite men (I currently have three and want to write notes to their mothers about what great men they raised - but that’s for another blog) and we went to see one of my fav bands - Vertigo Road (www.vertigoroad.com) - at a Genghis Cohen’s. It was a really lovely evening - good food, good company, great music. But halfway through the band’s set I realized something -- I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
I know it sounds strange but when you’ve been with someone for 16 years, you don’t think about things like that. He was a very affectionate person - always connected to me whether it was his hand on my thigh or my hand on his back. We were always in contact physically. I never took that for granted because I have friends whose partner does not touch them ever. It’s one of the things I really loved (and still love) about him.
Anyway, sitting on this bench type seat with this darling friend, I realized I didn’t know where to put my hands. I don’t like to sit with my arms crossed because it makes me feel closed down and defensive. The back of the bench was too high to rest my arms on. But more than that, my instinct was to put my hand on the leg next to mine. And while I think my friend would have let me and understood instinctively that it was something I needed, I think it might have been a little weird. So I sat fiddling and shifting, trying to find a good place to rest my hands.
See, no one tells you about these weird things that crop up after a relationship has ended. No one thinks to say, “You’re going to miss putting your hand on his thigh” or “You’re going to miss him in the car next to you.” They don’t tell you about those little things.
So I sat, my hands flat on my lap like dead fish. And I ached, for a brief moment, for it to be him next to me, just for the comfort, just for the simplicity of not having to think about it. Just because I missed him a little.
I know it sounds strange but when you’ve been with someone for 16 years, you don’t think about things like that. He was a very affectionate person - always connected to me whether it was his hand on my thigh or my hand on his back. We were always in contact physically. I never took that for granted because I have friends whose partner does not touch them ever. It’s one of the things I really loved (and still love) about him.
Anyway, sitting on this bench type seat with this darling friend, I realized I didn’t know where to put my hands. I don’t like to sit with my arms crossed because it makes me feel closed down and defensive. The back of the bench was too high to rest my arms on. But more than that, my instinct was to put my hand on the leg next to mine. And while I think my friend would have let me and understood instinctively that it was something I needed, I think it might have been a little weird. So I sat fiddling and shifting, trying to find a good place to rest my hands.
See, no one tells you about these weird things that crop up after a relationship has ended. No one thinks to say, “You’re going to miss putting your hand on his thigh” or “You’re going to miss him in the car next to you.” They don’t tell you about those little things.
So I sat, my hands flat on my lap like dead fish. And I ached, for a brief moment, for it to be him next to me, just for the comfort, just for the simplicity of not having to think about it. Just because I missed him a little.
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