Publishing

Who’d have thought when I started this blog, fresh out of college and trying to find myself and where I fit, that I’d end up here?

Mid-thirties, single again, with a cat for a best friend. Not to mention, some of my best pals that I talk to daily are still internet friends. So much has changed, but so much more remains the same. 

I’m no longer looking for myself. She showed up to the party a few years ago and said, “Screw labels and pressure and trying to fit in a box (or worse—fit outside of one.)” About the time my marriage fell apart, I finally remembered who I could be under the years of neglect and abuse. Being stripped of everything I owned and loved was a powerful trial by fire.

Granted, I still care what others think of me, just in a different way. I’m publishing my first full length fiction novel this year. My fear has become less about what people think of me and more about how my soul will live in black and white typeset for literally anyone to tear apart and set aflame. 

That’s part of why I’m writing this. For years, this blog was a small window into the inner workings of my sailboat mind and the roiling sea of emotions it navigates. You’ve watched me flounder, or get too cocky, have listened to heartache and near death experiences and profound longing to be loved for all that I am.

I’m still that girl, just grown. Still longing. Still sometimes feeling like a genius, a sinner, a lost child, or an overworked mare that needs to be put out to pasture. If I survived fifteen years of putting my heart and my words out across the internet, I can handle being published. 

That doesn’t mean I’m going to read the reviews. 

;)

Routines

I think we're starting to fall back into old patterns. I can feel you drifting back into the daily life we had before you left. I can feel myself drifting back into caregiver, peacekeeper mode. I'm not entirely happy with either situation. I don't want our old routines. I don't want our old relationship.

I want passion, I want boundaries, I want commitment, I want respect, I want love. I don't want the kind of love we had before, the kind where I bring you a glass of water and you get me an ice cream on your way home from work and those are little "I love you"s.

I want big love. I want hot, rough, fast, or loving, smoldering, slow sex, all day, every day. I want heat when you hold my hand, I want you to look at me like I'm the person you want most in the world by your side every day.

Instead you look at your phone.

I want, I want, I want. I've always wanted but never taken enough. Never taken enough for myself or spoken up for myself. I just compromise, and by compromise I mean that I say, "whatever you want to do," and "whatever you're hungry for," and "wherever you'd rather go this weekend."

I compromise myself and what I want and that's not okay. I don't want that anymore. I feel like you burned me and out of the ashes is rising someone newer, more confident, more selfish, more demanding. Someone who is going to be an equal rather than a doormat and I don't know if you're going to like the new me or if I'm even going to like the new me.

But I'm tired of giving and giving. Maybe you'll look back at this, even if we're still together ten years from now, and go, "I lost my girlfriend who loved me and gave with all her heart when I did that stupid thing." Because you did. You lost her.

Now you have choices. Me, or someone new, or be alone, or run back to the girl who has proved that she doesn't love you the way you loved her and she never will.

I can't tell you what to choose, I don't even know what I will choose.

But I do know we can never go back to who we were.

Birthdays

I had so much fun part of today. The part where I was swimming with my friends and taking photos and playing games. The part that felt carefree and relaxed.

And still you turned away from me. I didn't wake up with you and you rolled away when I tried to snuggle. Instead, I was awake at 6am on my birthday, alone and drunk in the dark in the pool. I watched the sunrise and thought it would help me feel hopeful about the year to come. A new day, a fresh start, a new beginning. 

Instead, my new beginning felt lonely, disjointed, cold, shaky, and disappointing.

And now I'm ending the day the same way. We fought, I cried. I'm sitting here and you're sitting over there and you don't want to touch me or be near me and I get worse. Everything gets worse. 

The loneliness increases. The feeling that I'm going through this and there is no hope it's going to get better hits and I just sob and sob and sob. 

This is what my birthday is this year.

I hate it. 

I want to feel better. I want you to love me and hold me and never stop. 

I want a lot of things. I don't think I'm going to get them. 

On Fire/Morphine

I can't put it down. I can't seem to walk away. I know I should, everything in me is screaming that this is not going to get better. That, fundamentally, there is a lack of respect for my feelings, there is a lack of prioritizing me first.

But all I want is to be closer. I want to crawl inside you and sleep inside your chest so I can feel your heart beating. I want to crush you, I want to kiss you, I want you to want me, I want you to fuck me- honestly, passionately, brutally, bruising me. I want you to claim me and never let me go. I want your purple handprints on my body so I have some confirmation of your presence when I leave for work or you leave.  I want to cleanse you with my body and my love so that the last person under you wasn't her. I want to claim you. I want to erase what you did.

But I can't. I'm on fire, torn between pushing you away and pulling you closer. I can't think, I can't breathe, I can't tell if I'm crying or gasping because I feel your hand on my back as if it burns down to my bones and I want you but I don't because I'm picturing you and her and she's awful and I want you to shed your skin like a snake so I don't have to touch any part of you that she's touched. I want you to touch me and never stop; I want you to never touch me again.

And I'm hurt, so hurt, but you've always been my comfort. I want you to hold me and tell me this was just a nightmare and it wasn't real and you love me so much, how could you ever do that to me?

I can't cry. I can't scream and swear. It's like my emotions have been running high this whole time and now that you've told me the worst someone turned the dial back down. Is that because it can't get worse? Do I have no more anxiety because it's over? What I was dreading already happened?

Now the only thing amped up is desire. I don't get it, I don't understand it. But it's there. I feel like I hyper-sexual being right now when I should be a mopey awful mess. Is there a term for this? Is this normal?

Is everyone going to judge me for staying when I was packed up and ready to leave?

Countdown/Morphine

I'm counting down again and this time it's my stomach that's in knots.

I don't want to do this but I know I have to.

I'm like a morphine addict. I know this is the fun phase, the sweet phase, the kind phase. I love kind T. I want to be with kind T. I want to stay with her and hold her and live with her and have babies with her.

But kind T doesn't stay.

I have to remember that.

I need index cards for tonight:
1.This is not my fault.
2. You cannot blame me for your actions.
3. I deserve better than this.
4. I did not look outside of our relationship to make myself feel better. Only you did.
5. How could you spend three nights with your ex-girlfriend and come home expecting to still be in a relationship? How do you justify that for yourself?
6. You will do this to me again.
7. You don't respect me or my feelings. You betrayed me on the ultimate level.
8. You had an emotional, if not physical, affair. You had an affair. You had an affair.
You had a three and a half month long affair.
9. You still think that what you did was acceptable.
10. You expertly planned and executed how to lie to me on multiple occasions to continue your affair.

Put down the morphine needle. This is one drug that is fatal. This is one time you have to walk away. Love doesn't always conquer all. Not when two people don't love the same way, the same amount.

I love you, but you love yourself.

Cycles

Domestic abuse falls into a common pattern, or cycle of violence:

• Abuse – Your abusive partner lashes out with aggressive, belittling, or violent behavior. The abuse is a power play designed to show you "who is boss."
• Guilt – After abusing you, your partner feels guilt, but not over what he's done. He’s more worried about the possibility of being caught and facing consequences for his abusive behavior.
• Excuses – Your abuser rationalizes what he or she has done. The person may come up with a string of excuses or blame you for the abusive behavior—anything to avoid taking responsibility.
• "Normal" behavior – The abuser does everything he can to regain control and keep the victim in the relationship. He may act as if nothing has happened, or he may turn on the charm. This peaceful honeymoon phase may give the victim hope that the abuser has really changed this time.
• Fantasy and planning – Your abuser begins to fantasize about abusing you again. He spends a lot of time thinking about what you’ve done wrong and how he'll make you pay. Then he makes a plan for turning the fantasy of abuse into reality.
• Set-up – Your abuser sets you up and puts his plan in motion, creating a situation where he can justify abusing you.

Your abuser’s apologies and loving gestures in between the episodes of abuse can make it difficult to leave. He may make you believe that you are the only person who can help him, that things will be different this time, and that he truly loves you. However, the dangers of staying are very real.

I may have to read this a few times before tonight. I may have to read and re-read and a third and a fourth time as I wait in the parking lot for the apologies that have already started.

They've happened before too, and just like this cycle. "I'm so sorry, I was such a jerk, I didn't think about you. I won't talk to her anymore...We have so many more problems than her and this is all your fault because you were mean and fighting with me before B and I ever starting talking. But I won't, I won't talk to her."

You'll be so sweet to me, you'll buy me dinner, you'll promise you'll get me to trust you again. Then you'll call me out for something stupid, "you rolled your eyes at me." "I didn't even feel it happen, I don't know what you're talking about." "Oh my god, I can't believe you won't just apologize for rolling your fucking eyes at me. I can't believe we're having a huge fight over this!" two weeks later. And right after that I'll have to sit through 57 minutes of agony as you talk to her in our dark bedroom with the tv on because you don't want me to hear.

It's exactly this cycle. You set me up to justify what you're doing.

I can't believe that I thought I deserved this for so long. I can't believe I let you talk me into thinking that you and B was my fault.

I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe.

Thank you for finally pushing me so far that I couldn't bend anymore. 

No/Controlling

That's not how this is going to work.

You can't just text me when she's done with you, when she has to go back to her life and you start to get scared that what you've done might be wrong.

I know the moment you find out I've blocked you on instagram. You text me you're sorry for hurting my feelings, that this whole trip was a "poor choice." On your last day. When I am your ride home from the airport. When B is gone, back to her life because she's not going to leave a guy who drives a BMW and lives on a tropical island.

And then you try to be magnanimous. "I'll sleep on the couch for however long it takes."

No.

You don't get to choose your consequences. You don't get to tell me how to be mad at you. You don't get to tell me what kind of crime you think you did and then choose the punishment you think fits.

You lied to me. You straight up lied to me and said you'd meet her for lunch, maybe. Then you posted pictures, so you wanted to get caught. You shoved her in my face, left and right. She's in your cover photo on Facebook! You confessed to the 3 day trip with her. You've lied over and over more times than I can count on my fingers and toes. You checked out on our relationship and expect me to be here working on it for you when you get back.

You expect to walk on me like the doormat I've been for you for the last two years.

And you're sorry for "hurting my feelings."

I found some autonomy and some self respect today.

You're not sleeping on the couch. What couch?

4 Days/3 Nights

4 Days. 3 Nights.

That's at least how long you were gone with her, the numbers that you confirmed for me. That's how long you guys took off for a weekend without your fiance or her fiance to a remote island. Without telling me. Did you guys tell him? By the lack of an instagram tag, I'm betting you didn't.

I didn't think about who used to read this blog. I didn't think about the kind of feedback I would get, but K is right. I'm putting the pieces together and everything you are doing is sneaky, and lying.

You know that what you're doing is wrong.

I protected you. I found out on Father's Day and I still went to dinner because your relationship with your dad has been so rocky, and I pretended everything was fine, and I talked you up.

When you were short with me on the phone before your sister's wedding so I got the time wrong, which, by the way, I was doing errands for you and then I was 15 minutes late to pick you up, and then you didn't talk to me the entire evening, even though you weren't dressed when I got there and we weren't late, I still praised you to all your family members.

You know what Sarah said to me at the reception? She said I make you better, that I support you, that I lift you up. And I had to listen to her and nod and smile and not cry because I knew we might not make it past that weekend.

This has been the summer of pretending. Of me pretending I'm fine when people ask, and you pretending you love me, when you've been deciding how to best cheat and sneak behind my back.

You'll wake up later this morning and if you even care to look, you'll find I've blocked you on twitter and instagram. You probably won't find this, or remember it. I've left facebook for now because we still have to talk about things and I can't just shut you out completely, but I don't want to see any more photos from Hawaii and now I don't have to.

How could you text me you love me last night while you're with her? Maybe you slept together, maybe you didn't. I don't pretend to know. But I do know that I wasn't comfortable with you having lunch so I would never be comfortable with you spending three nights with her. But you did it anyway, and then texted me that you love me.

You don't love me, you pretender.

Testing 1,2,3

You're testing me, obviously. You're testing me, right? You're trying to see how I'll react? And I'm failing, obviously.

Why else would you tell me you're not posting any pictures because you don't want to rub it in my face that you're having a good time, and then all the sudden it's a video of you and her, clinking bottles on the beach.

Of all the things NOT to rub my face in, why would you want to bring attention to the fact that you're with her? Why would you want to remind me that you're alone on an island with your ex girlfriend?

Do you want us to break up? I mean, I feel like the only sense I can make out of all of your repeatedly hurtful decisions is that you are too cowardly to break up with me. That you are trying to drive the knife deeper and deeper until I can't handle it and I have to stop it before you kill me with it.

Is that right?

Or are you so overjoyed by her that you have to tell the world, my feelings be damned? Do you forget about me and about consequences when you're with her? Do you forget about how I feel? Do you forget about hurting me? Do you forget about the promises you made me?

I don't know which is worse.

Hate You/Love You

These are things I can't manage to say to you in person, because if I do, I can't take them back. I'm not sure if I mean them, if I'm venting, if I just need to get it out so I can hear how it sounds and see if I recoil or if I grow. Some are things I wish I could say and others I wish you'd just fess up to. Some I wouldn't ever dare say. Some I'm afraid of.

Sometimes I hate you. Since June I have said that many times a week, usually crying in traffic. Sometimes it's a deep, anguished yell, sometimes it's a whisper or a punch to the steering wheel.

No one has EVER hurt me the way you have. Not even first:girl. I loved her deeply, but I hadn't planned my life with her. I hadn't put her ring on my finger and worn it for nearly two years. I hadn't started to plan our wedding together, hadn't set a date, started a pintrest board, started picking out the style of my wedding dress.

I hadn't had a real plan of growing old with her. I hadn't lived with her for two years and created a family with three baby cats with her. When she hurt me, she hurt a girl who still had a place to live, friends to lean on, family nearby.

I have none of that. My home was with you, my family was with you, my friends were your friends. And you cut me out of all of that.

And now you're gone and you say you don't want to be responsible for my emotions and I get that but also, fuck you. What are we doing here if I can't come to you when I'm upset, ESPECIALLY when you're the cause of it? Or when you can't tell me about your day because you don't think I'll be happy for you? Of course I'll be happy that you're having a good time! My goal is not to make you miserable and depressed and I think it's really awful that you think of me that way.

Our conversation last night left me angry and upset, unable to talk to you any further about it because you don't care to know about my emotions, because you're too drained from dealing with them. You should have thought of that before you started having a relationship with your ex, before you put me through shit of "I need you both in my life romantically," before putting yourself first over and over again every week since May. Obviously I'm going to be really emotional when you do that.

You say you've sacrificed, you say you've tried to make me trust you again. You've told me you love me. You've planned my birthday. You took a sick day to drive me to the ER after I almost died the night before, I actually really do appreciate it. But how does that rebuild trust? Then when it comes to the ex in question, you flip flop on your plans over and over again depending on her plans, proving that she is still so important to you, but you still decide to go see her a week AFTER I go to the ER and coming home two days BEFORE my birthday.

You refuse to stop talking to her. You refuse to cut her out even though I hate having her as a part of our lives. You asked me to include her in OUR lives ROMANTICALLY. I DON'T WANT HER AROUND. PERIOD. I don't think that's ever going to change.

So you're not willing to cut her out, and you're not interested in being there for me emotionally, and you're afraid of how much we're fighting and now you're "guarded" (give me a fucking break, if anyone should be guarded it should be me.)

And yes, I was mean, and I said things I shouldn't have said because I was hurt, and I tried to apologize but I shouldn't have said it in the first place. But I am also just learning that I don't know if I see a future with you. I can't be with someone who can promise to marry me and then throw our monogamy away. I can't be with someone who can hurt me so deeply and then only think about themselves and what they need. I can't be with someone who doesn't want to visit my family, who says their friends are a "package deal" and I can't talk about it with them. Who asks me not to leave but then pushes me away.

I wish we could have been better to each other, but we just weren't. I wish I hadn't been so awful this spring and maybe you wouldn't have reached out to her and started this whole mess. I wish I'd handled this better and you'd handled this better and maybe we could have gotten through it together.

I hope you can come back and we can spend my birthday together and make happy memories so that we don't end it like this. I hope we can share the boys and it won't be so painful to see each other. I hope we both get to live happily ever after. Maybe by some act of grace it will be together, but more likely it will be apart, and I'm learning to accept that. I look back at when we were first dating and it makes me smile so wide and I ache because I miss that. Oh, I miss you so. But that's not who we are anymore.

You wanted me to be more independent and autonomous, so here we go.

I will always love you,
XO