Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Rusty, Rusty, Rusty...
I am such a wuss. I really should break up with him. But I don't want to. He just looks me in the eye and I'm on him like a barnacle. I can't help it, it's an irresistible, almost unnatural force. I went to see him last night, hoping to discuss our "issues". The drinking and driving taunt, the emotional see-sawing games, all of it. But he opened the door and there he stood in a suit and tie, rose in hand. *whimper* He played me like a violin. I can admit that. I'm selfish, I guess. Immature, even: I just WANT him. Don't I get a chance to just have what I want for a while without analyzing every move to make sure it's "healthy"??
For example, the drunk driving call. I know it was purposefully designed to push me away. He went out and did something "wild and stupid" to prove he isn't under anybody's thumb, and just had to make sure I knew he'd done it. He's been working hard to push me away, and this time it worked. It stomped out my trust in him. That's why I said I want to see other people: if it's OK to see other girls, then he's not cheating. Any guilt he has for playing around will be his own, not on me; any lack of action he gets is on him, not me. And I can flirt without guilt, too. And maybe after a while one or both of us will find someone new, or we'll get through whatever garbage it is we have to get through to find our way back to each other, but for now, I can't feel as emotionally connected to him as I had before. He just played dirty and I can't abide by that.
So the suit and the 5 o'clock shadow, the rose... I just couldn't fight it. I wanted it. There's something about visiting him in his apartment like that, something almost fictional, like he's my secret escape to another life. There, I can pretend for a few hours that I'm not a mom, I don't hate my job, my ex, my fucked up life. It's pure fantasy: I step in the door, and there is a completely hot man waiting for me, happy to see me, ready to wrap his arms around me, look me in the eye and smile, and kiss me. He holds me close and kisses me a couple of times and I'm high. Like a psychic meth trip, woozy, happy, warm, tingling high. To hell with all the griping I had to do, to hell with what's on TV, to hell with my full bladder, to hell with the time, to hell with food, water, air, just don't let him stop. In that state, I could be persuaded to sign my life away for him.
And even more infuriating, he has been listening. My recent complaints about feeling unappreciated, unwelcome were addressed in action, not words, because as I've told him before, words mean nothing to me. I've lived with a verbal abuser for 10 years, I've heard it all. And sex? He did all the work this time, and I've got the rugburn on my elbows to prove it. And just when I think it's going to be a night of fucking like a couple of wild dogs, he looks me straight in the eye and I can see more of him than ever before: his broken heart, his ice-cold fear of me and desperately intense need for me, and all the love he has in the world for me, for his daughter, for his family, all of it laid out before me. I told you, I must be high. We went to sleep, and he pulled me close, arms wrapped around me as I drifted off, warm and safe, exactly where I wanted to be... simply nirvana.
But then the sun comes up and I have to return to the real world. The world where this perfect, gorgeous, sexy man is actually a scared boy trying desperately to find his way through life to somewhere safe and can't figure out how to trust himself and the world, and doesn't believe he deserves to be happy, and where I'm a mom with kids who need someone stronger and more stable than that, where I need someone stronger and more stable than that. And yet I love him. Damnit.
And on the way home, several truckers were openly gawking at me as I passed, culminating with one guy "racing" me and honking his horn, laughing and waving at me like he just saw the Swedish Bikini Beach Volleyball team. I was not dressed in any way to suggest I wanted this sort of attention. WTF?
I am such a wuss. I really should break up with him. But I don't want to. He just looks me in the eye and I'm on him like a barnacle. I can't help it, it's an irresistible, almost unnatural force. I went to see him last night, hoping to discuss our "issues". The drinking and driving taunt, the emotional see-sawing games, all of it. But he opened the door and there he stood in a suit and tie, rose in hand. *whimper* He played me like a violin. I can admit that. I'm selfish, I guess. Immature, even: I just WANT him. Don't I get a chance to just have what I want for a while without analyzing every move to make sure it's "healthy"??
For example, the drunk driving call. I know it was purposefully designed to push me away. He went out and did something "wild and stupid" to prove he isn't under anybody's thumb, and just had to make sure I knew he'd done it. He's been working hard to push me away, and this time it worked. It stomped out my trust in him. That's why I said I want to see other people: if it's OK to see other girls, then he's not cheating. Any guilt he has for playing around will be his own, not on me; any lack of action he gets is on him, not me. And I can flirt without guilt, too. And maybe after a while one or both of us will find someone new, or we'll get through whatever garbage it is we have to get through to find our way back to each other, but for now, I can't feel as emotionally connected to him as I had before. He just played dirty and I can't abide by that.
So the suit and the 5 o'clock shadow, the rose... I just couldn't fight it. I wanted it. There's something about visiting him in his apartment like that, something almost fictional, like he's my secret escape to another life. There, I can pretend for a few hours that I'm not a mom, I don't hate my job, my ex, my fucked up life. It's pure fantasy: I step in the door, and there is a completely hot man waiting for me, happy to see me, ready to wrap his arms around me, look me in the eye and smile, and kiss me. He holds me close and kisses me a couple of times and I'm high. Like a psychic meth trip, woozy, happy, warm, tingling high. To hell with all the griping I had to do, to hell with what's on TV, to hell with my full bladder, to hell with the time, to hell with food, water, air, just don't let him stop. In that state, I could be persuaded to sign my life away for him.
And even more infuriating, he has been listening. My recent complaints about feeling unappreciated, unwelcome were addressed in action, not words, because as I've told him before, words mean nothing to me. I've lived with a verbal abuser for 10 years, I've heard it all. And sex? He did all the work this time, and I've got the rugburn on my elbows to prove it. And just when I think it's going to be a night of fucking like a couple of wild dogs, he looks me straight in the eye and I can see more of him than ever before: his broken heart, his ice-cold fear of me and desperately intense need for me, and all the love he has in the world for me, for his daughter, for his family, all of it laid out before me. I told you, I must be high. We went to sleep, and he pulled me close, arms wrapped around me as I drifted off, warm and safe, exactly where I wanted to be... simply nirvana.
But then the sun comes up and I have to return to the real world. The world where this perfect, gorgeous, sexy man is actually a scared boy trying desperately to find his way through life to somewhere safe and can't figure out how to trust himself and the world, and doesn't believe he deserves to be happy, and where I'm a mom with kids who need someone stronger and more stable than that, where I need someone stronger and more stable than that. And yet I love him. Damnit.
And on the way home, several truckers were openly gawking at me as I passed, culminating with one guy "racing" me and honking his horn, laughing and waving at me like he just saw the Swedish Bikini Beach Volleyball team. I was not dressed in any way to suggest I wanted this sort of attention. WTF?
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