Saturday, March 21, 2015

"Wish I could be just a little less dramatic, like a Kennedy, when Camelot went down in flames." - Miranda Lambert

So this is me. 4 months later.  There are two extremes to how I feel at any given moment.  One moment it's like Boston was years ago, this crazy other life that I had in a completely different movie with different characters.  The next moment it was as if I were just there... well ok I was just there.  I flew home last week to shoot an indie feature and was horribly surprised by the ugly truth that I cannot possibly move back if I ever want to regain my sanity from my breakup.

I gave him up for Lent.  It wasn't hard, considering he won't return my emails anymore and probably blocked my number.  But then it got harder, because I was trying not to think about him at all and then of course my trip home was... well, it was too soon maybe.  I was hopeful I'd bump into him casually at an open mic, but I was busy and I didn't think stalking was something I'd be too proud of.

He hasn't spoken to me since my birthday.  Even after his promises that I would get an email or a phone call every few weeks and we'd try to rebuild or regain some sense of ourselves, giving me hope that we could someday get back together. I was thinking it was the only thing I wanted in the entire world, that I would pack up all of my things in my car and drive home with my dog and start over our lives together, mending the hurt back to love again.

I remember that's exactly what I was thinking of doing when I totaled my car.  I thought, "I know, I'll pack up all of my belongings, quit my job, and drive all the way back through Arizona, Texas, Alabama, Maryland, Virginia, and avoid the snow to get home.  I'll prove how serious I was about working things out and take the road trip all by myself across America to clear my head.  I'll do it, I'll -- WOAH that car almost hit me -- "

*CRASH*

I froze, shaking all over, my puppy in the backseat crying because he was scared and stuck in his crate.  The diaper cake I had made for my friend's baby shower was somehow still in tact on the seat of the car. I had avoided hitting the black SUV next to me as they had tried to cut me off and sped away, but rearended the mini cooper instead.  I couldn't even speak when I got out of the car.  Somehow I managed to call AAA. The woman on the other end of the line was very concerned, "Oh no, are you alright?! Is there anyone you need me to call to come get you?" 

The worst pain I've ever felt was knowing that even though I had just totaled my car, perhaps could have died if I had been going any faster, my boyfriend wasn't going to be there for me anymore, because he didn't want to be.

He didn't want to call and make sure I was ok. He didn't want to be my person anymore.  He wasn't my best friend anymore. It's still very hard to believe that someone just doesn't love you anymore.  Or if they do, they don't want to.  It's quite tragic, actually.

One of my girlfriends just got a job in NY and her boyfriend, without even thinking about it, put in for a switch at work and is going with her.  I asked him about it and he said, "Are you kidding?  Do you know my girlfriend?  She's amazing.  I'd have to be an idiot not to see that.  Of course I would go with her, no question about it!"  I almost burst into tears.  Why didn't that happen with us? My mouth tasted bitter.

When I think of the story I told about how I murdered our relationship, I often still think of my day-to-day feelings as my having to mourn a death.  There are parts of me that are still in denial.  Like when someone dies and you go to call them, or you think you can't wait to tell them something funny, and then the tears well up again because they're not there. He might as well be dead considering the dead silence I get and being blocked on practically every social media outlet.  Maybe he wishes I were dead. ... Ok, little extreme...

I was just in Boston and every place I went reminded me of him.  Riding in the car especially, I used to be his passenger all the time.  It was worse because it was right before St. Patrick's Day, a day that had become the holiday we spent together, just the two of us, three years in a row up in Stowe, VT.  Last year we had talked about getting married there, back when we were arguably the most in love we had ever been.  Then he tried to teach me how to ski, and that was the beginning of the end.  I got accepted to my program the day that we got back, and the paranoia that he would leave me had sat in the back of my skull ever since. All of that anxiety, not that it's an excuse, but it built up to my sabotaging the relationship later on.

Yes, I still blame myself for pretty much everything. Maybe it's just easier to think it was my fault instead of admitting we weren't right for each other.  Or maybe I'm right and I'm a horrible person who deserves all of the guilt.  How else could I explain why he gave up?

Whenever I'm having too much fun, suddenly a dark shadow comes up behind me, and it's the zombie, that Frankenstein's monster that I tried to sew back together after bludgeoning him to death 5 months ago.  Jesus, has it really been 5 months?  How awful to think of it in terms of time. I tried way too hard, I was desperate and crazy and every part of me acted like an insane child, and my ex who tried to be there for the sewing ceremony up and left, ran screaming, wanting nothing to do with bringing the relationship back to life.  By then it was too late for me.  I was stuck with my choices.

I basically carry this zombie around on a leash everywhere with me, trying to stop him from eating all of my good times, good friends, potential flirtations.  But the leash gets pulled and I can't control him. He's too strong for me.  He eats away at everything, and turns it into a pile of death and sadness. Then he looks at me and smiles, the guttoral sounds coming from his throat and broken teeth, "I'm YOUR responsibility, you know. You made me. Now deal with me."

I don't have a choice, he just comes with me wherever I go.  He only has half of a heart, and half of a brain, kind of like how I feel most of the time.  Like half of myself.  Eventually, maybe years from now he'll die off completely.  But right now he's just searching for the halves he's missing. I think my ex boyfriend had a party when I got on a plane back to LA, and burned the halves he kept to ensure the final death.

Ashes to ashes.

Death.

Dead silence.

I think I'm a black hole.