Debris hurling,
shrapnel striking,
as my very being exploded.
The damage was
unintentional,
unwitting,
regrettable.
You withdrew.
Looking back,
it is now
understandable,
and understood.
Sincerely,
I am sorry
you felt assaulted
when my life spun
out of control.
It was long distance.
I was cautious.
He was convincing.
We fell head over heels in his beautiful coastal city.
I said things like, you make my heart skip a beat.
He said things like, everything in my life brought me to you.
In 48 years and many relationships, long term, short term I had never fallen in love like this…. from the top of my head to the tip of my toes.
We hiked to the top of giant mountains.
We made up stories about old couples in restaurants.
We fell down laughing at least once a day.
We did not leave the bedroom for three months.
We tell each other everything.
He called me twice a day for a year and a half.
I met his family.
He met my family.
Suddenly without warning he said he was done.
He sent me notes saying how hard it was…
A month after we broke he started dating a girl with my name and she was my doppelgänger.
They lasted four months and broke up…
He told me that he was a disaster…. we held each other…. then I gave him space to come back… with some sex here and there.
I was in it for the long game.
The following is my long game:
7 eBooks on how to get your boyfriend back
5 books on how to move on from heartbreak
2 ashrams
3 psychics
2 healers
293 yoga classes
986 down dogs
5 Eckhart Toile Audio Classes
7 dresses
14 pairs of shoes
7 letters to Oprah
1 yoga retreat
1 witch doctor
2 voodoo dolls
1 Juice cleanse
2 almost boyfriends
2 nights of bad sex
47 Ambien
57 Xanax
3 Magic Brownies
84 nights of Valerian Root
97 Melatonin cocktails
20,002 sighs
900 pieces of chocolate
9 nights of good sex with my ex (him)
37 prayer candles
Eight million tears
5000 hopeful thoughts
6048 hours of my life
And then came the text….
I’m sorry I hung in there so long.
I’m sorry I lied.
I’m sorry I lied to you every day of my life. 3, 4, 5 times a day or more. I told you I would take care of you. Good care. I told you I would change. I wanted you to just roll with whatever I sent your way and never suffer any consequences. Not wanted, expected. After all, you were mine. I owned you. You were nothing without me. I drove you, I moved you, I kept you up late and made you get up early. I took you places. I drank. I ate. I ate. And I ate.
I tried it all, all the fixes. The healthy ones and the unhealthy ones. I desperately wanted one of them to work. Everything from a liquid diet to therapy to a 12 step program. It all ended in disappointment. And in my world disappointment was equal to devastation. Trying became too hard.
So I abused you even more. Because it was too intense. Or lonely. Or fearful. Or joyous. Or empty. Or excited. Or uncomfortable. Or habit.
It didn’t fucking matter.
Occasionally I would take care of you: a massage, a facial, a personal trainer, a few random trips to the gym always with promises of more. There was that time when we did yoga every day for a summer and we both looked and felt great. But it never lasted. And it was always nothing more than a band aid for the real problem: I couldn’t handle life.
I mistreated you. I punished you. I asked you to hold all my feelings inside for me and to make sure that happened I fed you so there was no way for them to come up. I fed you so that I wouldn’t need anybody else. I am a rock, I am an island. The fear turned to terror when I realized I was no longer capable of handling even basic emotions. I was an adolescent trapped inside the body of an adult. A very well masked adult.
When you couldn’t take it anymore you broke.
I cried. Sobbed actually. More promises. I would change. I would fix this. I promised through heaving chest that THIS time would be different. I knew I had been letting down all the people in my life, myself included. Tomorrow was going to be different.
All lies. Tomorrow will never be different.
But today, today is different.