I think what's hardest about this breakup is the irritation of having to admit to a pre-existing perspective problem. Because that makes me the crazy ex-girlfriend so easily. How clever.
Yes, I have, in the last year or so, lost my grasp on what's real and what's mixed up psychic wiring. But now, it is incredibly hard to determine what is valid pain and what is just emotional fallout from all those expectations and desires for happiness layed so heavy on this person willing to accept them.
On top of that, being suddenly exposed to light and and blinking like a mouse in a cage hiding under his plastic tree trunk, I am also trying to decipher between what is shock and what is calm and wonder. It's something I've not quite experienced before. I've certainly been broken up with before, but not by someone that showed absolutely no sign of wanting to leave me up until the moment he did. So why did I feel so safe?
I can see us in the Springwater Supper Club, me wearing those goddamn fishnet stockings he wanted me to wear. And I wore them because I felt safe. I had no idea that this person that called me baby, meowed at me all the g'damn and held my hand like he'd never let go, was still auditiong me. I was auditioning in those fishnet stockings, like some sad-eyed, clueless exotic escort. He said later, "Shannon, we were only together twice." As if this was supposed to erase the truth, in one sentence. And I was so confused. So confused. Because that second time, I thought I was with my boyfriend, not my john. I mean, I flew to Nashville.
I didn't know that someone who assured you on the telephone late at night to let down your guard and not feel the need to tiptoe, who would talk about being honest and talking things out and working at a relationship, could then say, "It just wasn't the same in person." It sure seemed the same in person to me. I mean, all we did was spend quiet time, have sex, talk and cuddle, laugh and do that all again.
And there was the bar. Us in the bar. Was he hiding that he didn't want me? I don't believe it. I can't believe it. You weren't there. I was. He wanted me. We snuck out back and whispered to each other, smoked and stared and pulled and pushed and grabbed and he said, "You're going to get it when we get home." Now it's: The day to day was different. I just don't feel the same way. We were only together twice.
I find myself speechless nearly every day.
I find myself crawling into bed and refusing to call my closest friends to tell them about this because, honestly, I don't know what to say. I can still see his eyes, looking at me as if I were so dear and so precious and so sexy. I can still hear his voice the way it sounded before, calling me his precious Shanni, calling me sexy.
But what I can't see is what happened in Nashville that made it unsatisfactory. Starting then? Starting there? But I was there. I was there. And I came back missing him. We cried on the phone together when Polio died, and I still thought he was right there. See, this all sounds like the babble of an insane woman, talking about an invisible lover but I'm telling you.... he was there. And the most horrifying words I've ever heard are, "We were just together twice." As if the free trial were over. As if there was never any gauruntee of anything at all. As if I were overreacting. And you might think so too....
That's what's so clver and cruel about this situation-- how easy it was for him to brush off what we had in general, so as to make himself look sane. How much it seems like he was never there-- that I was seeing things, hearing things.
I presented his "It's intuition, we're not meant to be!" excuse to a guy named Itchy in the bathroom at the former Gaslight. And he looked at me with eyes that were truly sad. I said, "What?" And he said, "Let me tell you, please, as a man. There is someone else involved. He has other interests."
And I died.
But I knew suddenly it was true. I knew. And I probably knew before, when he stopped wanting to flirt and text sexy messages because he was "depressed".... but not too depresed to surf young women's Myspace profiles late at night. Not too depressed to start flirting with them. And now I guess it's no longer a mystery, this thing: "It;s just intuition. We're not meant to be." I don't think he DID believe this in Nashville like he says. I think that real got too hard, and he wanted to start chasing the unattainable again. He wanted the flirting stage again. He had gotten what he wanted from me. And I think I knew this about his character when we first met, though I won't go into details on why. But he was so sweet on the phone. So sweet in person then. But I think I saw it in his eyes. Still, I wantd to love him, so I did.
In back of that bar, with his hands all over me, I could never have guessed he would have been questioning his feelings for me. I could never have guessed he would be looking around for better prospects. But that's what, "We were only together twice." means when you say it to someone you told a few months earlier that you would marry on a beach in Maine. But I'm tired of those words now. I'm tired of them pounding in my head. I'm tired of looking down at my phone and wondering if I will ever believe anyone really adores me ever again. Because he said it. He said it over and over again. And it wasn't true.
If I had any idea that I was such a different person in person than I am on the phone. maybe I wouldn't have gone to Nashville. But I flew there because he was my boyfriend. My real boyfriend. At least I thought so. And if I have any idea I had the ability to turn someone off of me by wearing fisjnet stockings and kissing his nose like he asked, then I wouldn't have done those things. But I did them because he was my boyfriend. At least, that's what he said at the time.
But it was so different to him. Enough to let me go as quickly as possible and get right back to flirting with women that do not know him....
Women who, HOPEFULLY, are into man boobs and limp dick. But I'm sure these women are a dime a dozen. They're out there.
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