A few weeks ago, mid August, I tearfully called my mom and asked if i could come home for a few days/weeks/months...forever just to get my mind straight.
The last few weeks have been well, a roller-coaster of emotions. I am either okay and managing or a hot mess of anxiety and tears and not managing well. There is no in-between.
On the okay days, I am able to just be in the moment and enjoy things. I now work semi-full time at the university because Heather (the girl i worked with) got a new job and until they find a replacement I am working more hours there. And I like my job on this campus. I like my office and my view. I like the people I work around. And the cafe serves the best grilled chicken wrap ever.
On the okay days, I surround myself with goodness. I have supportive good friends who enjoy late night trips to this hole in the wall diner as much as i do. I have my video games and my books and music. I have my trips to the city and cute clothes. Fall is here along with the return of my sweaters. AND the orange cat FINALLY sleeps at the foot of my bed. Two years later and he finally sleeps with me. On the okay days, I am happy. I am surfacing. I am okay.
But those days are far too few in numbers. For every okay day there are a handful of fucking awful ones. Le Sad store has literally become the worst place ever. Management sucks. Every week someone is getting fired and the new hires are so young it's embarrassing. Annoying Cashier and his Annoying Gf broke up two weeks ago, she quit a week later and now we are struggling to cover shifts. And everyone else is just miserable. Absolutely miserable.
My insomnia has hit an all time high. Some days I work a double at Le Sad Store and the University and I am worn out by the time I get home. But despite how tired I am I can't fall asleep. I have developed this irrational fear of falling asleep, the process I mean. So it takes me longer than usual to just let sleep take over. I am also not eating well which has resulted in me losing a lot of weight. And people commenting on my weight loss only makes me even more self conscious about it.
To top it off I feel sad and anxious all the time. I am moody and cranky and have been down right bitchy to people. I feel disjointed and not like myself. It's as if some thing has crawled under my skin and is sucking the light out of me. I feel grey. Without hope and it's awful. I haven't felt or been myself since the summer shenanigan went down and it's killing me. I didn't think a boy could fuck with my head and self worth so much, but alas, Sean has done it. He has dug a hole in my head and I can't get him out. 2 months later and I can't let go of any of the things he said to to me. Some days we are friends, and it is easy being near him. It is easy falling back into the comfort of our relationship. It is easy loving what he has to offer: attention, immediate and selfish attention.
But that is not enough. Especially after what went down. Cause most of the time, the other days, a friend is the last thing i want to be to this boy. When I am around him i feel low. I see him and I immediately hear the awful things he said to me. Every-time, it doesn't fail. I see him and i feel ugly. I feel small and not like a person. I am ugly and gross. I am not enough. I am something to be used and then discarded. And because of this, while I want to forgive him ,I don't know how because what he said has changed me. It has left me vulnerable. It has damaged something. It has chipped away at some part of me that was important. And i am never going to get it back.
Sure, i will get over it. Sure i will move on. Sure i will find a nice boy who likes every single part of me. Sure i will only surround myself with friends that respect me. But there will always be a part of me, who was that girl in the car, being told by a boy she really really liked that she wasn't good enough. I will always hear: 'you don't have to worry about me cheating on my girlfriend with you because she's like 'it' for me. She's all the way up here and i'm sorry but you just aren't'. And it won't be a huge part that stays with me of course but that feeling of invalidation and rejection will be there. There will always be a part of me that catches myself in the mirror and thinks 'i'm just not' and i'm not sure how to get over that. I'm not sure how to stop hearing him.
I have this sense that people think (cause i've told my closest friends) my hurt feelings stems from the sexual part of our interaction and subsequent rejection. But that's not the case. I let this boy into parts of me that not even my mom and Kat have had access too. I've let this boy see aspects of myself that were not sexual and he invalidated that part. I'm okay with getting naked in front of him.I was okay with the shower and the touching and the closeness (despite how strange it was). I didn't care that he wanted me to sleep on him.What I cared and still care about is afterwards when he could have just been fucking honest instead of being a coward. Instead of just saying 'hey I've always wanted to see what you look like naked. Hey i like having you around. We can't be anything because of the gf situation..."
Instead he said he was never interested. That friends use friends all the time and that's what he did. And I can't get over it. I can't. I don't think i ever will. Not because it was any old asshole telling me this but because it was Him. It was Sean. And what's worse is that I allowed all of this to get this far. I didn't care about the signs. I didn't listen to the advice. I went along with this bad relationship because I wasn't use to someone seeing me. I wasn't use to a boy thinking I was pretty and interesting. I liked being wanted. I craved his attention because it gave me worth.
So i invited him in. I gave him access to every part of me.And in an instant he broke me. He made the last year, and everything that has happened between us, seem like one big joke. And it has destroyed me, how easy it was for him to do it. He has broken me. And every time i see him, every time he comes around he triggers my anxiety and i feel worthless all over again.
And because of this I wanted a break from him. A physical one because it's hard going to work and being around him and feeling all those things and then having to go home and let all of it settle inside me. Its been hard. So i asked my mom if i could come home for a bit. Just a week to rest and not be in the environment that has suddenly because caustic and unreliable. And of course, she said yes. She said i could come home where she and my brother and my bed and home-cooked meals and the slow comfort of my small town life would be waiting for me.
So i took five days off from Le Sad store and intended to be in South Carolina from September 18-24th. Of course at the the last minute I decided I would save my travel money to go home for Thanksgiving because I couldn't afford to go home in September and for Thanksgiving but i still decided to take a break from Le Sad Store. I decided I could still use those days to re-group and center myself. This whole week everyone has been wishing me a safe trip down south and even though i wasn't going home I've said the whole 'yea, thanks, i look forward to being away for a bit'. Because it's the truth. I look forward to not being at work.
But Sean has been increasingly annoying about my vacation time this week. He'd say things like 'i'm happy you're going home. You deserve a break", and from anyone else this would not have unnerved me. This would not have gotten under my skin. But because HE is/was the reason i choose to go away and it cut like a razor whenever he'd ask me about my vacation. It did. My last day at work was Tuesday and I was in not in the greatest of moods. A few days earlier Sean came at me aggressively about his birthday gift (
i bought him a ticket to New York Comic Con this year. They began mailing the tickets two weeks ago and because his ticket is being mailed to me He came up to me last week as i was talking to a friend and said "where is my ticket. I kind of need it. Everyone I know has there tickets and I kind of need it, like now'. I was taken aback because he wouldn't be going this year if it weren't for me and he looked as if he was accusing me of not giving it to him on purpose. I didn't have it of course, which i told him, but by them he'd already triggered so many emotions i couldn't deal the rest of the night), I was not nice to him after this because of obvious reasons and have spent the better part of the week regretting that even when i was the most mad at him I wanted to give him something nice. And even then he didn't appreciate it.
Anyway, Tuesday was not a good night and by the end of our shift, I said 'i'm so fucking happy to not be here for a couple of days. I'm stressed and I can't deal and I need to get away from here". So Sean says 'hopefully you'll have fun in North Carolina. Isn't that where you are going on vacation?". And I lost it. I lost it. I turned to him slowly and said "it's South Carolina and you know the reason i planned this getaway was because of you, right?. I'm not going just so i can see my mom and brother. I'm going because I needed to get away from you. I needed time not being around you, so i'd really appreciate it if you stop wishing me a happy vacation when that's not why i'm going"
And guys, this comment set him off. I have never, in the whole time we've known each other, seen him so upset. He asked me if i was kidding. I said no. He asked me again, if i was serious. And I said yes. I told him the truth. That I requested time off from work because I couldn't deal. Being at work and seeing his face and feeling all the things i'd felt was damaging to me and I requested time off so that I could escape him for awhile.
And he gets really quiet. And his face gets red. And he looks dangerous. Unrecognizable. And I am a little scared. And he asks me to get away from him. Violently. He can't believe I would say that to him. He can't believe that I would do that to him. I am such a bastard. A bitch. What am i trying to do to him. And i'm a little confused because it is seriously the most honest thing I've said to him since shit went down and he is malfunctioning in front of me.
When we get to his car, because of course we have to finish the conversation, he is pissed. He is fist clinched and red eyed pissed and he is demanding answers from me. Did i really take days off of work because of him? Is he the sole reason why I've been feeling like shit? How did I think he would react to finding out that he is the reason i'm leaving? And I'm not sure if this realization is a good thing or bad thing. He keeps asking why I am doing this to him and I don't know what he means. And he says that it makes him feel like SHIT that he could cause so much, not pain, he doesn't say pain, but it makes him feel like Shit that i'd rather leave the state than be near him.
And then he kicks me out of his car. He asks me to leave. But of course I don't. So then he asks me to give him examples of what he could have said or done that has made me hate him so much i'd leave because of him. And while I can write the words, I can't say them to him. I don't know how to verbalize it. Because he'll take it the wrong way, he always does. He'll think that because he said he wasn't attracted to me my ego is bruised and now i'm just pouting like a spoiled girl.
Instead what i want to yell is that i'm upset that he didn't choose me. I showed him all of me and he didn't pick me. He didn't validate me or our relationship. He let me down. He disregarded me. I wanted to be apart of his life and he in some way shut me out.
We end our argument on a sour note. He asks what will happen when i come back and i tell him i don't know. I ask him the same thing and he says he doesn't know either. But my words, like his, has changed his face. He looked broken and out of sorts. He said I got into his head and fucked the contents up. He said I was right and that has made him feel awful. And when we say goodbye this time it feels final. It felt final and while i know it's for the best, it feels fucking awful.
