(Author’s note. Original publishing date was June 2020)
“It’s happening again.”
The Giant from Twin Peaks is on a loop in my head with the same angst and urgency as when Maddie died.
I do not feel good.
I got a courtesy email from Kijiji yesterday, addressed to Final Boss. No idea why it didn’t go to the junk folder, but it didn’t.
51 weeks ago he was laying in my bed, in the room I made for his comfort asking for help looking for an apartment. I did it. I helped, and he ended up in a trap house anyways.
And it’s happening again.
I do this every fucking time without fail.
I don’t see reality.
I really gotta talk to my therapist about this.
I only see potential, never who they really are. Then the truth comes out and I am blindsided. Devastated. And I get to play a fun game over months called ‘what did I do wrong this time.’ And you dear readers get to walk along beside me on my quest to be a better girlfriend/partner by dissecting myself until there is nothing left of me. Followed by a soft delete wherein I decide I made everything up in my head and they didn’t really say or do those things, they didn’t really love me it was just me seeing things that weren’t there.
But invariably a memory or an email from Kijiji shows up and I am right back where I started and faced with the truth that no, it was real and it doesn’t matter anyways because it’s over regardless.
Nina Simone said, “you have to learn to get up from the table when love is no longer being served.”
I never do.
I buy the food, cook a beautiful meal full of love and exotic delicacies, set the table, serve, maybe take a couple quick bites for myself, dish out seconds, then dessert, then clear everything, wash all the dishes and wipe it all down and wait for scraps. Meanwhile they are off eating junk food burgers served up by plastic girls in polyester uniforms.
This time I saw the signs a little.
Still ignored them.
The one thing that keeps looping in my head is when he said that I shouldn’t deny myself the now discontinued vape pods that we both love so much, that I shouldn’t save them for when I see him. My brain whimpered “donuts”.
I don’t know why that is the thing my mind is latching onto; I know my gut rolled when he said it a month or so ago. Maybe I did really know then, what I am about to find out now.
I got the ‘we have to talk’ message earlier today.
This is me in real time, trying to calm down, to not vomit, not cry.
I write things down to get my head on straight, it is what I do.
And I plant flowers in graveyards and sing songs about the ghosts who haunt here.
He seemed real. Like really real.
And it isn’t like I didn’t know what I was getting into.
There have never been lies here.
I don’t think Final Boss or any of the other ones ever lied outright either. Not on purpose.
I seriously think I am going to throw up.
I was talking to my girl earlier.
With much bitterness in my voice I said I am used to this.
And I am.
I show up. A ball of unconditional love and support. And they bask in it for a while.
Then, invariably end up leaving to go back to mediocrity.
Is it more comfortable? Do they need the nagging?
I don’t understand.
I tried reading that book, Why Men Love Bitches. Some of it made sense. I liked the first few chapters about being your own person and having your own life. It’s important. But then it bled into manipulation and lying and I can’t. I want to be loved as is. Freewill, not by force or obligation or false pretenses.
Maybe I set the bar too high.
And I can’t bring myself to be a bitch.
I don’t want to be worshiped for something I am not, I want to be loved for what I am. It took me a long time to get here.
I am friends with an amazing mega dominatrix online and I adore her. But I know I can never be like her, or the majority of my friends. None of whom are like me.
I listen to their advice about what I should do with my life, but I know. I will always be ruled by my vulnerable heart with my vagina cheering her on from the sidelines and my logic just rolling her eyes and prepping for the worst.
I actually really believed everything I have been through and everything I have learned finally had a purpose.
Truth be told, I have toyed with that idea before, but this time it felt real.
The stove is always hot, even if it’s a different stove.
I keep thinking if I stay true to myself and fine tune things and continue on my quest to figure out how to love that someday someone will see me and know I am the one they have been looking for.
And, they have.
Problem is to be with me they have to be a little better and do a little better and get used to new things. Unlearn old ideas of what relationships look like, and I get the fear of the unknown, the unstructured, the new.
And some of them have tried, bless their hearts.
But invariably it becomes too much so I am too much, and they settle back into the muck of old routine masking as comfort.
There is a huge re-offense rate with criminals, life out of prison is scary and hard when that’s all you know.
I know I can’t expect or ask anyone to change any more than I can magically turn into a bitch.
If I was going to, I would have by now.
But this is the 46th verse, same as the first.
I suppose now the silver lining is that I don’t beat myself up quite as bad as I used to about it.
I would rather be too much than not enough.