part I

The Love Life

It just doesn’t get any shittier than this.

I used to love you, now I don’t care

Now I turn around, you’re everywhere

So you can chew me up and spit me out

You’re just the little bitch I cared about

I know you can see me

But you don’t believe me

I know that you’re lonely

Time will tell, and time is hell

No sex or violence

No morbid silence

Forever sleeping

You won’t stop breathing

You hold me captive and it’s not fair

Progressed insanity is everywhere

You need to love me but you kicked me out

My head is wandering so knock me out

I keep my head afloat I’m drownin’ in

The muddy water pulls me down again

I used to love me, but I hate me now

I’m just a little bitch I cared out

I know you can see me

But you don’t believe me

I know that you’re lonely

Time will tell, and time is hell

No sex or violence

No morbid silence

Forever sleeping

You won’t stop breathing

I can’t come up with the amount of stupid detail I want to write here. Maybe that’s a sign I’m growing up. Or maybe I’m still just too pissed about it to write coherently. Maybe my disappointment is overwhelming. I don’t know. I’ll give it a shot.

Basically, Tuesday afternoon I asked Mike to come over that night at 9pm. He agreed. I wanted to just completely end it in person, because I always hated getting that last e-mail or phone call. I was impatient and tired of hearing all the excuses as to why he was too busy to take any phone call from me, when he never missed a call in January. It was wearing on my nerves and getting just stupid. A little voice in the back of my head was whispering (vehemently) “No one gets to treat me this way anymore!”

As much as my heart was begging me to wait, give him more time, etc etc etc, I couldn’t imagine even another week waiting, waiting, waiting.

At 9:35p, after sitting on my sofa unsuccessfully trying to watch “Four Weddings and a Funeral” since 9pm, I checked my e-mail. Of course. Chicken Shit, who is apparently completely afraid of confrontation, writes me:

I just got home, I’m thinking that I won’t be stopping by the house tonight. I may call you after I get groceries put away and I get some laundry started. I’m not really sure. Right now, at this exact moment, I’d prefer not to talk to anyone. But that might just be because I just got home and I’ve got a bazillion things to do.

Doug commented several days later that this should have been the last communication between the two of us. Yes, I suppose that would have been the healthiest plan. But my ego wasn’t having it. You, fuck with me this way? I hardly think so.

So, of course, I called him. Twice. The first time it went to the answering machine. The second time it rang nearly four times before it was picked up. “Oh, I was just coming up the stairs,” he says. Yeah, save it for someone a little stupider.

I told him he should have called me to let me know he wasn’t coming. He snarls and snaps out that he sent me an e-mail. I told him that I had other things I could have been doing. He snarls that I should have gone ahead and just done them.

(Then for my favorite part:)

He snarls and snaps again, loudly, that I can’t “make” him “feel guilty” with this, because he did “tell” me he wasn’t coming (with an e-mail 21 minutes after he was already supposed to be here) and it’s not his problem that I didn’t just go ahead and do something else.

I’m blinking into space, trying to reconcile what he’s just said with any form of logic known to civilized society.

Not happening.

I point out that he’s a very selfish person. “Yes, I am,” he states emphatically. “Are you proud of that?” I ask.

Talk about sheer stupidity on my part. Why did I even call him in the first place? (Doug says I just put myself in harm’s way again, and gave him another opportunity to be a prick to me, when he’s already proven himself to be a prick multiple times before. In this case, I have to agree with him.)

So, Wednesday, I leave a message on his voicemail asking if I could go by his house that night. I really want to end this in person, if I can’t get any answer from him as to what his mind has twisted all this into. (And, note: he was screening all my calls. Precious.) That evening, I call (of course) and he says, well, it depends on Thomas, and when he goes to bed, and if Mike himself is tired, and all the other mealy-mouthed bullshit excuses I keep hearing from him.

Needless to say, we broke up for good and ever Wednesday night.

He just “doesn’t want to have to tell someone” where he’s going to be and when he’ll be home, etc etc (Ed. note: I never even contemplated asking him stuff like that, but…). Asked if I was the “rebound girl” and he says, yeah. Got hung up on after calling him a motherfucker, and I called right back. Of course, as with all the men in my life, he picks up the phone.

By this time, I’m furious and caught between mad-tears and heartbreak-tears and either way I’m crying. He says really quietly, “No matter what, you have to believe I love you” or some other shit to that effect, and I lost it. I told him rather emphatically that there is NO WAY IN HELL I believe he loved me. Because… he couldn’t love me and treat me that way. I was impressed with myself later, for the clarity to know what was truth and what was a lie. For not simpering and saying, “oh I know, honey, you’re just confused” or some other bullshit like that. What a joke.

I hung up on him after telling him I’ll never believe anything he’s ever said to me, and cried. About ten minutes (or one minute or 20 minutes, who knows) I called him back. I announced into the phone that he needed to know he’s just lost the best thing that ever happened to him, and then hung up again.

That’s the last communication with him. Hoorah. Part of me is happy, and part of me is heartbroken. Part of me believes January Mike, and part of me believes Doug.

Doug’s comment to me, right before the end of our last appointment, was that most men think that the easiest, nicest, kindest way to dump a girl is to just fade into the woodwork of her life, instead of saying, hey it was great, but now it’s come to an end. He said the ploy they usually utilize is that they need some “space.” One eyebrow raised, I asked him if he really thought I didn’t know that. He said, well, you didn’t act like it. I said, no, my heart knew that his “space” was really bad. That’s why it was so horrible. If he truly “needed space” he wouldn’t have treated me the way he did.

Ugga bugga. It’s over. That’s all I know. He has his stuff back, I have my stuff. And I hope he misses me to death.

* * * * *

Went back to church today. Back to Covenant. First I went to Grace & Peace Fellowship, but that was no good. So I went to Covenant. And found out that, oddly, I’ve been missed. I miss my church family.

Also went to a lecture with Charlie Peacock presiding. He’s a producer/songwriter/etc etc etc and was incredibly enlightening. I’ll need to mention that whole thing later… He had an impact on me.

My faith isn’t dead, ladies and gentleman, it was just hard to balance a violently unbelieving boyfriend and a love of my Lord. *pounding head on wall* Mike never made me chose between them, but he also never made any effort to understand, really. His heart is closed. And mine needs to be loved and to love Jesus. I didn’t realize how much until today.

All in all, life is good. Not painless, not easy. But good. Obvious I didn’t script it, but good nonetheless.

Whew,

michelle