a day for thinking
26 February 2006 18:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amulFinicky Savage (formerly Deedi Dearest) called me today, and made me hang out with her. I told her I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, wanted to indulge in this thing that I spend so much energy avoiding, but she dragged me out of the house for lunch. Kept telling me I shouldn't think about it, shouldn't let myself get dragged down into it.
We ate at this Mexican restaurant near my old Chase Ave apartment, the one Not A Hooker sublet to me for six weeks when I first moved here. I'd wanted to go to El Cid, or that one restaurant Comfortingly Bouncy took me to that time I was mad at her. I couldn't remember the name of it, though, and it was Too Far Anyway.
We were the only ones in the restaurant, and it was so silent-dead that I actually asked if they were open, which the waitress was a little offended by. There was jukebox that would suddenly burst into song every ten minutes, shattering our quiet conversation. It played one song and then went dead again. Rather disturbing.
It seems Finicky Savage is secretly a huge fan of Competitive Eating Tourneys, and she spent most of the meal talking to me about that while I let my mind wander where it would. She'd tell me about the medical problems that the World Champion has, and the rigorous training regiment of the legendary "Tsunami of Hot Dogs" goes through before the annual Nathan's July 4th Competition.
Meanwhile, my wander was alighting on a few topics, jumping between them delicately and without much order: talking to CB about the unanswered questions I still had (still have, half a year later), the way you never get certain kinds of closure; (f)AD calling me up last year and telling me that she'd been waiting for me to realize what day it was; Roo looking at me, asking, "What's wrong? Where's your ring? Oh my god, Amul, where is your ring?"
I'm trying to remember something good about My Ex. Trying to figure out why I stayed with her for so very very long. Last night, Thinks Too Much told Silent Dancer that the difference between he and I was that I had hubris, and he did not. SD turned her head down and to the side, twisted a curl of hair in her fingers, and I waited for her to begin balling up a strand between her thumb and forefinger until I remembered that this was SD, not Roo. Still not sure why she reminds me so much of her, and in any case it avoids the thought.
I will let myself think about these things, today. I am a master of avoidance, I have learned a thousand tricks to suppress, to ignore, to combat, to silence the thoughts in my head. Not today. Today, I will let myself think about it. About her.
She loved the way I ate omelets, My Ex did. We used to sing the song from Fiddler on the Roof, "For twenty five years I've lived with him / fought him, starved with him / twenty five years my bed is his / If that's not love, what is?" Then you love me? "I suppose I do" And I suppose I love you too. // I doesn't change a thing / but even so / after twenty five years / it's nice to know.
I trusted her counsel. Listened to her advice. I picked her up from work every day. Volunteered at the museum she worked at for events.
When did it go wrong? What was my part of it? I tried so hard to fix things. The number of times I cried with the effort of trying to unearth what caused her unhappiness.....
Unrestrained Laughter and Another As Yet Unnamed Friend hitched a ride with me home from the clubs last night. UL made some joke, and I answered a bit more seriously than I intended. She noticed and questioned me about it. I told her how I really felt, and was keenly aware that, three years ago, that degree of honesty would have meant a fight waiting for me at home.
In my head, I can hear people laughing as I tell them, If I talked about the relationship to anyone, she'd argue with me, throw things at me. Soft things, but still she'd throw them.
I can remember all the cruel, demeaning things she said to me. Can recount, with disturbing accuracy, the insults, the jibes, all the dissatisfactions she presented to me. Can hear her say, a thousand times, "You're a total idiot! You think that's why I'm mad at you? It's just what I told you to see if you would change for me!"
I cannot remember why I loved her. I adored her idiosyncrasies (did you know that literally translates to "with one's own private mixture?" How marvelous) and appreciated her wisdom. I agreed with her philosophies, her politics, and thought her a better judge of character than I ever would be. I loved her taste in music, theater, art, movies. When we first started dating, I marveled at the way in which neither of us offended the other when we expressed our own needs.
None of that seems like a definition of "love." What made me love her? What was worth all the pain that I went through to try to hold on to it? When did she give up on me, and what did she give up about? Why didn't I notice until too late? What could I have done to stop it? Was I a bad boyfriend?
What did I do that I should not do in my next relationship?
I'll never know. I will never find an answer to these questions that satisfies my need to understand what went wrong.
But, at the very least, there is no one who will hurt me for admitting that I hurt over this.
So, fuck you, Christine. Today, I'm going to talk about it.
We ate at this Mexican restaurant near my old Chase Ave apartment, the one Not A Hooker sublet to me for six weeks when I first moved here. I'd wanted to go to El Cid, or that one restaurant Comfortingly Bouncy took me to that time I was mad at her. I couldn't remember the name of it, though, and it was Too Far Anyway.
We were the only ones in the restaurant, and it was so silent-dead that I actually asked if they were open, which the waitress was a little offended by. There was jukebox that would suddenly burst into song every ten minutes, shattering our quiet conversation. It played one song and then went dead again. Rather disturbing.
It seems Finicky Savage is secretly a huge fan of Competitive Eating Tourneys, and she spent most of the meal talking to me about that while I let my mind wander where it would. She'd tell me about the medical problems that the World Champion has, and the rigorous training regiment of the legendary "Tsunami of Hot Dogs" goes through before the annual Nathan's July 4th Competition.
Meanwhile, my wander was alighting on a few topics, jumping between them delicately and without much order: talking to CB about the unanswered questions I still had (still have, half a year later), the way you never get certain kinds of closure; (f)AD calling me up last year and telling me that she'd been waiting for me to realize what day it was; Roo looking at me, asking, "What's wrong? Where's your ring? Oh my god, Amul, where is your ring?"
I'm trying to remember something good about My Ex. Trying to figure out why I stayed with her for so very very long. Last night, Thinks Too Much told Silent Dancer that the difference between he and I was that I had hubris, and he did not. SD turned her head down and to the side, twisted a curl of hair in her fingers, and I waited for her to begin balling up a strand between her thumb and forefinger until I remembered that this was SD, not Roo. Still not sure why she reminds me so much of her, and in any case it avoids the thought.
I will let myself think about these things, today. I am a master of avoidance, I have learned a thousand tricks to suppress, to ignore, to combat, to silence the thoughts in my head. Not today. Today, I will let myself think about it. About her.
She loved the way I ate omelets, My Ex did. We used to sing the song from Fiddler on the Roof, "For twenty five years I've lived with him / fought him, starved with him / twenty five years my bed is his / If that's not love, what is?" Then you love me? "I suppose I do" And I suppose I love you too. // I doesn't change a thing / but even so / after twenty five years / it's nice to know.
I trusted her counsel. Listened to her advice. I picked her up from work every day. Volunteered at the museum she worked at for events.
When did it go wrong? What was my part of it? I tried so hard to fix things. The number of times I cried with the effort of trying to unearth what caused her unhappiness.....
Unrestrained Laughter and Another As Yet Unnamed Friend hitched a ride with me home from the clubs last night. UL made some joke, and I answered a bit more seriously than I intended. She noticed and questioned me about it. I told her how I really felt, and was keenly aware that, three years ago, that degree of honesty would have meant a fight waiting for me at home.
In my head, I can hear people laughing as I tell them, If I talked about the relationship to anyone, she'd argue with me, throw things at me. Soft things, but still she'd throw them.
I can remember all the cruel, demeaning things she said to me. Can recount, with disturbing accuracy, the insults, the jibes, all the dissatisfactions she presented to me. Can hear her say, a thousand times, "You're a total idiot! You think that's why I'm mad at you? It's just what I told you to see if you would change for me!"
I cannot remember why I loved her. I adored her idiosyncrasies (did you know that literally translates to "with one's own private mixture?" How marvelous) and appreciated her wisdom. I agreed with her philosophies, her politics, and thought her a better judge of character than I ever would be. I loved her taste in music, theater, art, movies. When we first started dating, I marveled at the way in which neither of us offended the other when we expressed our own needs.
None of that seems like a definition of "love." What made me love her? What was worth all the pain that I went through to try to hold on to it? When did she give up on me, and what did she give up about? Why didn't I notice until too late? What could I have done to stop it? Was I a bad boyfriend?
What did I do that I should not do in my next relationship?
I'll never know. I will never find an answer to these questions that satisfies my need to understand what went wrong.
But, at the very least, there is no one who will hurt me for admitting that I hurt over this.
So, fuck you, Christine. Today, I'm going to talk about it.
