Love, Shame, and Bleeding ALL THE TIME: Part One

 

Anxiety-humming in the background of all this year’s adventure has been my own personal mini-horror-movie—the yuckiest, most erratic, most alarming periods. Maybe post (2021) Covid weirdness, maybe perimenopause, definitely at least one fibroid.

All my period-having life before this, I had periods as regular as the moon. I tracked them with little red hearts on the calendar. If I was feeling sad or overwhelmed or crabby, I could mentally check when it might ease up. My period was a not-favorite friend. A routine so predictable as to be almost comforting.

Plus, most of that time, I was either not having regular sex or having sex with a lady who understood. Most men I’ve played with either didn’t overlap with periods or didn’t mind putting a towel down. I still had this weird, instrumentalizing fear that I couldn’t do “what I was there to do” with guys—sometimes being on my period made me feel naked and exposed, and not in the good way.

The Shy One, true to his name, didn’t prefer period sex. I was such a jerk about it once when we were in the middle of a fight about other things, and I regret that, but it still felt like kind of a patriarchal disdain was behind his non-preference. “Other women,” he’d defended, “Don’t like to have sex on their periods.” Maybe meaning..normal women? Clean women? Still, I transformed those fears into kindness and patience with him and DEEP resentment of my own misbehaving cycles.

I can’t tell how much of my shame in that relationship came from mirror-neurons, from me absorbing emotions he didn’t know he was giving off, and how much was projection, fear of religious people, fear of men. I have to admit, and this is pretty fucked up, that if his conservative background had been Christian instead of Muslim, I might not have made it to a fourth date. His conservatism felt less scary because it wasn’t my family’s brand, but I guess, patriarchy is patriarchy, and my own overcorrected bigotry is still bigotry.

Things to ponder as I keep realizing that life isn’t a romcom, that *love despite our profound differences* is maybe not the healthiest thing to believe in.

Anyway, periods. When he came home from his long trip home to Sierra Leone and we hadn’t seen each other in three weeks, he decided to brave period sex on a light day, inspired by missing-each-other horniness. There was a LOT in that day that maybe I’ll write about sometime, but the sex was profound, adventurous, and loving. “Oh thank you, thank you, THANK you.” I cried out as he entered me, always a little too grateful.

But he often did this thing where he pulled away after a date, whether to focus back on home and Mrs. Shy One or just focus back inside himself, where he preferred to be. Near the end, in that making-myself-small-so-I-don’t-have-to-lose-him phase, I felt crazy and needy for wanting him to be kind and loving after dates, instead of tuning me out for a few days.

In that void, I started to wonder if I’d traumatized the innocent boy with my never-not-bleeding vagina. There was this idea in my head that he was somehow cleaner than me, that she was cleaner too because she shared his aversion to period sex. In so many ways, I felt like they were normal and I was deviant. That she was pure and good and I was a guilty pleasure. And instead of realizing that was the awful nonsense that it was, I got madder and madder at my body, at myself.

Knotty Thursday: Boa Knot and Emo Flirting

 

Did you know Fire of Love is narrated by Miranda July, the patron saint of artsy broken hearts? What a perfect movie, wish I'd gone to see it when it was playing at The Song Sender's movies! Last night I sat in front of this latest in a string of beautiful sad movies and halfheartedly learned my weekly knot. I had personal harness time too, but that was just for me to know the details of.

These weeks post-breakup haven't been all sad movies and melancholy self care! It's February, my carversary, so I had to bring Valentine in to get inspected by the Cute Car Place Guy. He's still as bad an idea as ever. ("Look, if you want me to come by, I'll come by," said this married and definitely not poly heartthrob/jerk-to-his-wife.) But being all "Oh my heart's all broken, will I ever find love again?" and having him be like "Of course, you'll be fine! You're a strong, beautiful woman." made all the heartbreak a little easier to bear.

They say it takes about half the time of the relationship to get over a breakup, but I'm not sure I want to wait five months to be slutty again! On the other hand, I AM sure I'm not messing with any husbands right now, poly or otherwise!

Heartbroken flirting is a new kind of adventure?

New Feeld profile--at least they know what they're getting?

A Little Reset Adventure!

 

Although I’m proud of how well I’ve taken care of myself in the two weeks since The Shy One breakup (Two weeks ago yesterday. I can still hear him (Pretty understandably!) hissing It’s Monday morning to my latest round of tears and worries.) it’s been really, REALLY hard, maybe especially on my friendship with BFF-Formerly-Sweetie.

I couldn’t figure out how to get the tears out on my own, so I would call her and cry—pretty standard best friends stuff, except that we’re also ex-wives. Having tried so hard and, according to my Depression Brain, “failed” with The Shy One, the grief got tangled up with having “failed” to be Sweetie’s wife. The guilt and shame of letting go of these two big relationships that were/are so dear was overwhelming.

The way Depression Brain puts it: “Here are these two wonderful people who tried so hard to love me and I just couldn’t let them. Am I incapable of being loved?”

I felt like I was letting down BFF all over again. I felt like I was letting down all the friends and family I’d talked to about the relationship. It even felt like I’d let down my friendly next door neighbor, because she’s friends with Mrs. Shy One. Of course she is. That lady is everywhere.

Anyway, after HOURS of listening to me over the past two weeks and also twenty years, BFF let slip that she doesn’t believe polyamory exists at all. I was…done confiding. All of her years of polyphobia and biphobia came back and I thought (Pretty unfairly) “Oh of course I hate myself. This bitch has hated part of me for the last twenty years.”

It would be fun and easy to blame her and be mad, but I can’t. A pattern came back like an unwelcome friend and I was about to step into it for a self-hating kind of comfort.

Yes, it’s shitty of her to deny a whole way of being that brings so many people so much joy and fulfillment, but she was mostly just mad at The Shy Ones for hurting me so badly. And because it’s probably a lot of stress to keep fielding tearful calls. And probably also because of all the pain I caused her during our mono/poly marriage years. And because she’d hurt me so much then too.

I’ve spent ten months trying to be what The Shy One wanted me to be so I didn’t have to say goodbye. I can see the echo of my marriage in that (mostly unasked for) grim determination.

So instead of going another round with BFF, I just put it all down. I asked for a friendship break. No calling a million times a day. No relying on her to explain things I could easily Google for myself.

And huh. As soon as I made that decision, my loneliness felt halved! It feels liberating to act like I’m genuinely single instead of reenacting the role of Full Time Disappointer.

So yesterday I asked if we could make this pause into a more permanent friendship change! We’ll still hang once a week but the dependency needs to end. I’m curious and optimistic to see what the next phase of our friendship might look like! And I haven’t sobbed in like two days!

Knotty Thursday: Figure 8 Knot and Tiny Steps Forward

 

(Note: the first draft of this post was a little more chill, but I’m in the middle of watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind so, yeah.)

It’s hard to find any hope about love. I’m impatient for the grief to be over, but about once a day, it sirens out. If it’s too close to work time, I just talk it through—I call BFF-Formerly-Sweetie and have Ten Minutes of Sadness. She listens to me loop though the whys and what ifs and whats nexts.

But if there’s enough time before work, I wail. Wail and drive or wail from under the weighted blanket or next to my In Full Bloom flowers-of-the-world thousand piece puzzle. The sadness wails out from my guts, harsh but self-loving, excruciating but productive.

It comes from my guts because that’s where my soul lives, and my soul has lost one of its dearest mates. The Shy One sent me off in search of My Person, but that’s just not how I’m built. I belong to him, as much as I belong to the rest of the characters in this story. As much as I belong to the spring azaleas or the Hope Diamond or the cats.

Someday, with distance and time that belonging-to-him will feel safe again, and I’ll love things for the way they were, not for how we wished they could be. Grace. Forward motion. Lavish and abundant and loud and beautifully vexing love with someone or someones who fit. But my soul says not yet. My soul whispers “come back” like a prayer.

Maybe The Shy One’s soul was only meant for one mate. Maybe that’s the unbridgeable ocean between us. It’s not for me to know.

For now, tiny steps toward the brazen and sexy person I was when he met me. One knot a week, and then back to my puzzle and my soothing movie podcasts. I’m proud of this knot, little and ordinary but infinite.

 

Holy Fuck, This Guy Tried SO HARD.

My heart hurts so much this Valentines Day, even as I make lots of art and celebrate all kinds of love past, present, and future. It would be much easier if I could be angry, bitter, if I could blame The Shy One and myself for teaming up to break our own hearts. Instead, I keep coming back to:

Curiosity.

Wonder.

Acceptance.

Maybe even the building blocks of peace and hope.

Yesterday, I did the maybe-ill-advised thing of pulling The Shy One’s texts out of the “recently deleted” folder (Who knew that was even a thing?) and gave it a little backwards read. Not all four thousand something texts, I only made it as far back as December. But I read enough to have my heart broken open by the truth: The Shy One tried his heart out until the very, very end.

He loved me. I got very, very loved, dear readers. There’s no amount of pain and loss and grief that can stop me from admitting it.

I’m glad I undeleted those texts long enough to rescue his last picture of the moon. To read his last “I love you too, Ma’am” (Kissy face emoji) There was hope and cuteness for our Tuesday date. I don’t fully understand why I couldn’t make it to that Tuesday night, or to our first trip together that was supposed to be this weekend.

Without the fight for his attention, without the pain of waiting to hear from him and missing him all the time (Well, I do still miss him, but it’s different. Because I’ve accepted my longing. Because we’re both free to build the lives we want.) I could scroll through those texts and feel the love from him that I couldn’t always feel when we were together. When we both were trying so, so hard.

It makes me wonder all over again (Without the fix-myself-so-this-can-work pressure) if I’m just someone who is incapable of being loved by a man. Because of the years without them. Because of the fear and trauma and anger and all these years fighting the patriarchy.

But I must be capable of being loved, because I was, I am. I almost believe what he said about loving me forever, even as he was ending things.

I think looking back on those texts (Which I have since re-deleted, and then deleted from the recently deleted) was a good experiment. Even in a moment of such loss and hurt and Valentine’s Day, I cold feel how dedicated he was, how much I was adored. One of my heart’s major quests!

I still feel guilty that I just couldn’t let it be enough, that I couldn’t have made it another day, another week.

Whenever we were at odds, grace is what he always asked for, and what, for the most part, I gave. Grace is what I feel today, with all the sadness. Now that I’m not fighting for whatever I was fighting for, grace is easier to feel for both of us. It’s possible to feel kind, empathetic, even a little at peace.

Grace.

May 23, 2022: A Letter to Myself From Unconditional Love

 

Elizabeth Gilbert has a quarantine-era meditation on Insight Timer that I still use sometimes on badbad days: https://insighttimer.com/elizabeth_gilbert_writer/guided-meditations/facing-fear-with-a-compassionate-heart

One of the things she suggests is writing a letter to oneself “From Unconditional Love”—I mean, I’d much rather be getting love letters from cute boys than from abstract entities/myself, but these letters do work. I found this letter in one of my journals from the first time I broke things off with The Shy Ones, and I’m like, whoa, this lady really knew what she was doing.

I’m going to edit it for floweriness because no one should have to read an actual journal entry! Also, neither of them actually used the word “discretion” but it’s what they wanted, and it’s the reddest of my red flags in the past and henceforth.

Dear (Me),

You don’t have to feel better yet. I love him too. I love him so big and wide and all-encompassing. I wish this could all be okay.

That warmth. That connection.

They expected “discretion” and I know you’re wondering why you didn’t provide it. Why you couldn’t just *do* it.

You’re wondering if you just ran away because you were scared. You were very brave. You didn’t want to let him go and you did your very, very best.

I’m so proud of you—you stretched and found whole new chambers in your heart. Whole new muscles.

This is important. Just because it was short-lived doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just reached the end and I know you miss him so much but it did reach the end.

I know it hurts. Thank you for writing this with me, for doing the things that help the most.

This is going to take a while. It’s going to take a while because it’s important. Because it was meant to be. Because it’s meant to live in you and change you. You can’t control the way it changes you, or the time it takes.

Just keep moving. And know he was smitten, he really was. I want you to take that to heart, even/especially what he said at the end: you do deserve to find what you want.

There’s no guaranteeing it, but if you trust your heart, I promise to take care of the very very nice adventures to come.

Let yourself be sad, but don’t give up hope.

Love,

Unconditional Love

A Fortune Cookie Slip is Really Small

Before I untangle this connection any further, I have to say, I chose this. I went all in on The Shy One because, well, I’m not sure I have other settings. But I knew he didn’t want the same kind of relationship I wanted, and I chose him anyway. Partly because love, but partly because I don’t feel worthy of what I want. It seemed easier and more fun to try to fit into his limited vision for us than to keep looking for the kitchen table or otherwise more available guy/constellation that I wanted. Sorry, me!

And while I’m fumbling through the push-pull cycle of neediness/withholding/being marooned on weeknights, it’s important to acknowledge that there was a three-day trip coming up for us, mid-February. I can’t fully explain why that wasn’t factoring into my heart’s schedule math. I really, REALLY wish I could have made it to Friday the 17^th.

Anyway, a week before the actual breakup, after I admitted that the texts were carrying too much weight because I missed him ALL the time, because I wanted more intimacy and more groundedness to our connection, he suggested daily calls. (I remember in the beginning, he was always telling me I could call whenever I wanted, but that never felt like the right thing to do for whatever reasons.)

So we picked a time that worked for both of our work days (This daytime stuff has a mistress vibe to me, but I don’t think it would’ve if our hearts were aligned.) and had nice calls for a few days. I liked having a little more of his ordinary dailiness in my ears, but I also resented the impingement on my work/art/whatever during the day.

But it was lovely, those little chances to know him a little more. Until Thursday before last. My small-talk go-to, what are you making for supper?

Thursday was Chinese food night, it turns out, so I was like, “Oh yay! Send me a fortune!”

“Nah. That’s (Younger Daughter)’s thing. I wouldn’t want to mess with that.”

She likes to smash the fortune cookies when they come, a precious tradition for sure, and one I would never have asked to be present for. But would really have liked to be present for, I guess it’s okay to admit.

A fortune cookie slip is so small. Grab it after dinner when you’re clearing the plates, snap a pic, easy-peasy!

I didn’t say that of course, I just made agreeable noises and let the subject move on to other things. Like I did after so many little rejections like that.

I couldn’t and can’t fathom how I could have “messed with” his daughter’s tradition by wanting a picture of a fortune cookie slip, but that’s how it felt to him. I guess, like the me world and the family world would have come too close, the fortune cookie slip turning into a vortex and then a black hole that would destroy both worlds somehow. He was having a protective instinct, I don’t think it was intentionally cruel or phobic, but just whoa. Not this.

Aside from the closetedness, his conservative background, and general resistance to change, I can see how being in a relationship with someone who wants more could feel claustrophobic, even threatening. I can empathize with the pressure there, I felt it too, from the other side. A mismatch feels oppressive no matter what anyone tries, that’s why there’s breakups!

But being seen as a threat to children. That’s just something you just have to live with, as a queer educator, as a queer ANYTHING. I’ve lived my whole adult life with the societal idea that I might be a “groomer”—it was there the whole time, even before the DeSantises of the world decided to make the implicit prejudice more explicit.

I know that it’s partly his own shame, his own dissatisfaction with his own poly situation that made that cookie slip vortex such a real fear. I’m just really, really sorry to have put my poor heart in the way of that shame and fear, especially since I saw it coming. So I’m writing myself a little apology.

Dear Self,

Yes, I knew better, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to what you really wanted, that I tried to make you settle for so much less.

In fairness though, we also deserved the pleasure and happiness he WAS able to give! There’s no reason to feel ashamed of all that! It was real.

Self, I’m going to try to hear you. You want someone you might see on Christmas Day, even though the 20^th was lovely. You want someone who will share his life, organically and at a pace something other than glacial. You want to take your time and date whatever number of people feels right. You want to feel like a gift, not a duty or a burden. You want to bloom and vine and grow love all over the place. You want to have bad days or panics or sad moments without feeling like an annoying todo list item.

Self, you’re a morning glory, not a bonsai, not a cactus, not a pruned miniature rose. You want to love big. You’re already doing it. Go ahead.

 

Okay, Yes, It Was a Miracle

 

The tides of heartbreak shift so fast! Last night, I wrote this draft about miracles, but my mood this morning is kind of just—well that was a crazy thing to try! Why did I think the thing with me and The Shy One could EVER work?! I mean, it did work, in its own halting way, as long as we could manage it, but, really, this?! Nuts.

A therapist told me once, not unkindly, that I may not have the best judgement. She was talking about how I thought I should be a full-time teacher in a pretty harsh school district. Actually though, I’m glad I did that too. Sometimes I do a hard and beautiful thing that smashes me to smithereens, but I come back together eventually, in a new, expansive, not necessarily wiser shape. Once in a while, I break myself. I don’t think I do it on purpose.

But let me stop comparing this cute man who wasn’t a match to the job that nearly killed me. There’s no why except attraction, except curiosity, except love. It’s beautiful how two such badly mismatched people could have tried so hard, for so long. (To me, ten months with an asterisk is LONG.) I was fighting so hard for what he couldn’t give. He tried his heart out to be enough for me, and it made him sad that he couldn’t get there. I hope he felt acknowledged enough, appreciated enough.

A year ago, when I was getting ready for Valentine’s Day and enjoying the last bursts of loveliness with The Good Boy, I would never have imagined the year of love and adventure that was to come! Even the sequel with The Song Sender seems like it was fated, written in the stars—and that guy SUCKED.

Now here I am, with a for-later treasure trove of frilly things, a deep abiding love in my homebody heart for Sierra Leone, (Buy WHY, Frank Ocean song. Just why.) a Hidden Folder full of hotness and cuteness that I never, EVER would have dared to imagine when I started these adventures 11 years ago.

Even that Monday “good morning” text that went missing in the ether, that accidental silent morning that made me cry so hard and so deep about feeling so disconnected, even that perfectly ordinary glitch seems like the most powerful divine intervention I’ve ever witnessed.

How could something that was THIS much of a mess still feel so sacred, so how-it-was-all-supposed-to-happen?

Darn gratitude. I was really trying to be salty. I’m sure I’ll be that too.

Knotty Thursday: Untangling the Frilly Things

Y’all, I didn’t mean to get myself into Grateful Mode so quick. I was ready to hunker down, stay mad, compare myself to Mrs. Shy One until I wanted to fling myself into that ocean he crossed for her. Instead, hope. Liberation. I’m free to look for what I want, even if I don’t know what it is. (I kinda know what it is.) I miss him, but way less than I did when I was waiting for his texts.

Last Saturday, as part of my Have an Awesome Day and Don’t Think About Why He Doesn’t Want to See Me Most Weekends extravaganza, I took all the lingerie sets he’d given me out from their Christmas box and the other places they were strewn, and hung them neatly on hangers along with their various straps and attachments. I fretted about whether it was an okay time to send him a pic of my accomplishment. For praise! And because I was sooooooooooo lonely for him even though I’d spent the day doing almost all my favorite things. (In this case, tidying up and sparking all the joy.)

I’m gonna have to fold up all the pretty things and put them away for a while. Even aside from the grief, I’ve still never managed to get my head around them. Here’s an incomplete list of the thoughts and feelings I’ve had about the pretty lingerie gifts since they first appeared a few days before Christmas:

1.     OMG it never occurred to me that this kind of beauty would ever come in my size, let alone be gifted by such a gorgeous sweet man!

2.     I must be a beloved princess, getting so lavishly spoiled!

3.     Some of them, he saw on me in pictures only. It would have taken him a while to get to this many outfits worth of visits.

4.     The radio silence after I sent one of the pictures. The radio silence after most of our dates. Or near radio silence. Or even perceived radio silence because he always left SO FAST.

5.     Holy moly who KNEW I was this fucking hot?!

6.     Mortified self-consciousness when he asked about the fit and I had to tell him the pretty purple one was a little short, that the snappy crotch thing had come unsnapped almost right away.

7.     What would it be like to have an Only Fans where I just wear these things and play with my nipples all day? Is that allowed?

8.     Some of these are Rihanna’s panties. Oh no he must have spent so much money. He is in a two-income household with two real full-time jobs and I’m a small business owner who barely makes a profit and is still partially supported by my ex-wife of ten years. What if someday I lose my place and have to move into BFF-Formerly-Sweetie’s front room because my rent is too high and my post-pandemic credit score is awful.

9.     I should talk to him about the class divide between us. And the cultural divide. And the fat/straight-size divide. And the closeted/out divide. But there’s no time to talk about those things because I’m supposed to be an escape, a balm, not another thing to feel dutiful about, not another bundle of feelings. Not a burden.

10.  Mistress-not girlfriend feelings. Doll-feelings.

11. When I named myself Pretty Ribbons, these lacy things were definitely the wildest dream. I never in a million years would I have envisioned so much lacy abundance for myself. It’s time to dream bigger.

Fuck this Brunch Epiphany and Fuck These Two.

I don’t know how long The Shy One had been trying to break up with me. Maybe since we tried getting back together in July.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I wanted some privacy to let the thing with The Shy One grow on its own. What happened was, it didn’t. I’ve tried really really REALLY hard to figure out how to fit into his life, but the space just kept getting smaller. Still, there was so much goodness there too—sex so profound and beautiful I never did learn to get my head around it. Pretty lingerie I’ll take pictures of before I put it away maybe forever. Cuddles in front of Gilmore Girls. He let me drag him through The Fancy Gardens even though it was freezing cold. He came to my Christmas party and met my students, and my mom, and the one aunt who’s not too vocally fascist to talk to.

But the feeling I couldn’t stand anymore was Waiting for Him to Text Back. I wanted to throw my phone in the river because no matter how much he tried to stay in touch, the distance between us would not close. He said he loved me but I couldn’t feel it.

And the feeling of Wondering If He’s Ignoring Me Because it’s Her Time (It’s ALL her time, turns out, I kind of knew that last May.) And I’m Not Allowed to Know When That Is. (Because it’s always.)

Or wanting to send him a picture of the sunrise or sunset or a painting or a cloud but feeling resentful because he’d kinda stopped sending me pictures of anything after he got home from his big trip. Then sending him the picture anyway because he said text whenever but that wasn’t really the rule either. (I still don’t know what the rule was, only that I got snapped at if I got in touch wrong.)

To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much SHOULD NOT depend on an emoji. Or a GIF. Or a “good morning.”

Anyway, so brunch:

I was trying for every-other-month brunches with Mrs. Shy One. I really liked hanging out with her and was learning to think of her as a regular non-fictional human and not Nakia from Wakanda Forever. (Mrs. Shy One doesn’t look like Lupita Nyong’o, it’s just a vibe.)

Last Sunday, we went to a place she picked, full of cool people and hustle and bustle and noise. All the menu options had a lot of adjectives. I tried the Deep Fried Bread Pudding French Toast with Candied Bacon and Lingonberry Jam. I thought lingonberries only existed on Portlandia.

It’s not her fault (Probably? ) that I felt ugly and stupid and clownish and poor sitting there with her. But these two things she said, jeez.

When she asked, “Who else are you dating?” I joked like oh, you know, just this one guy. And she was like “Who?” And I was like “Uh, (The Shy One)?”

“But I know you’re always out there, right?”

I mumbled some excuses like having too maybe-misleadingly-slutty of a profile pic, but, no, not really. Just then, just this past while, I wanted to be dating just him. He was a lot. A LOT. And I needed time and space to settle in if I was going to. I was swiping Feeld sometimes, not totally off the market, but like, let me just be in love with this guy for like five seconds. I think it’s a totally valid way to be poly sometimes.

I felt so stupid, like I wasn’t doing this right, like I was too dowdy and dim and simple and needy to keep up with these two FUCKING SUNBEAMS.

(Did I mention that he emigrated for her? Crossed the whole ocean and came HERE of all places?! And I had to clamor for anything other than a few hours on a Tuesday.)

(But actually, we had a trip coming up on the 17^th. The ticket cancellation showed up in my inbox at 4am. At least he couldn’t sleep after the breakup? But why couldn’t I make it til through to the trip. Other than I couldn’t figure out how I was going to eat or poop all weekend and I was scared of ending up stranded in the middle of a pretty-scary part of the state.)

ANYWAY back to brunch. Mrs. Shy One said something like “Oh it doesn’t matter if I don’t see my girlfriend for a couple of weeks, I always have dick at home.”

This pronouncement SUCKS for everyone involved, but it really made me come to terms with all I was left out of, all I was missing. I couldn’t imagine ever being that filled up, that confident, that wanted, that loved. I mean, I had that with Sweetie-Now-BFF, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit in that relationship either.

I could never measure up.

I could never have what she has, especially if I kept pining after a guy who erases my existence to every single other person in his life. Who lies to his kids about his love life and would only let me drop him off at home once.

“It’s my street,” he once said angrily, while of course being cuddled and feted on my street.

Their life is perfect without me, without ANYONE else. The rest of the world is a threat to what he really wants. (I mean, the rest of the world IS a threat, but that’s seventeen other conversations.)

Not with a bang, or a sweet-but-resolved text. With a “good morning” that got lost in the ether yesterday. I called to check in later in the morning, and he offered to send me a screenshot as proof. She’d done the same thing when my phone dropped her text confirming brunch. These two are scared to fucking DEATH of me. It’s so awful that they felt like they needed receipts.

I didn’t want to be scary. I tried to ask for as little as possible, to be self-contained, to self-date my way to satisfaction, to just be quiet and leave him be as much as I could stand to in hopes that I would stop being an irritation. That he might miss me and be kind and want to be near me.

I feel dirty, and broken, and ashamed. I’m literally surrounded by pretty presents that couldn’t bridge the gap.

I wanted to be part of his life. Of their lives. I didn’t want to be a secret. I wanted to meet the kids, or at the VERY LEAST for The Shy Ones to learn what a babysitter is.

He wrote it as a starcrossed kind of story, just circumstances. But I wanted him to see me. To choose me, not instead of them, but alongside.

He said he “prays that I find my person,” but my mind doesn’t work that way. I don’t want The One, I’ve loved many Ones and will (I GUESS) love many more. I think they’re all valid, they all count. I wish this one had counted more to him. I wish he could see me without the threat that haloed me in his mind no matter what I tried to do. I wish he could see me.

It really pisses me off that in like six months I’ll be like oh, poor us, just a bad match. I hate magnanimous. I hate how small I tried to be in his life, and I hate how I’m an ogre in his mind anyway. I hate this.