Part 4 - July

March turns to April to June and July. Four months of crying, dating, meeting, traveling, dining, etc. I never did anything I would be embarrassed about later…well, ok going on a date with a 57 year old guy was probably not the best idea but whatever.

I had a wonderful adventure in a 72 Winnebago.

I saw Simon and Garfunkel play together while standing ankle deep in mud at Jazz Fest in New Orleans.

I was propositioned by a 25 year old bartender in Puerto Rico (I said no.)

In June girlfriends asked if I wanted to come on girls weekend with them. Heck yes I said. So the weekend after the 4^th of July we were off to a small town on a big lake north of my metro area. 5 of us in one big SUV. Two dating, three single. We met up with another single gal up there. One of the daters was dating a man who had a guy’s golfing weekend that same weekend in the same place. That is how they met. So every year the guys go up, and the girls go up, and everyone meets up after dinner at the local bar to dance and drink the night away.

I was in! So up we went and a good time was had by all. Well…by me anyway. I learned so much. Most specifically that when someone asks "Are you the band?" You say yes. We drank, we ate, we talked, we danced, I kissed a man who looked like Tony Hawk. The next day we did it all over again (except the Tony Hawk part.)

There is one photo I especially love where there are 5 guys standing/sitting around me either touching, talking, or looking at me.  I’m a chubby bunny…this had NEVER happened before. I was electric. It was incredible.

I met a very nice man in the guy’s group that I was interested in. His name was Mark. He was in his  early 50’s and had recently retired having just sold 3 businesses. He was charming, attractive, interesting, a good conversationalist, a good dancer, and not too handsy. We really hit it off the second night. We danced and talked and discussed issues and family. We said good night politely but in a way that promised more on another day.

The next day I was hungover…cheap vodka does that to me, and I was drinking rail. A mistake, but whatever. It was Sunday and we were heading home. I was in the way back seat trying not to hurl and thinking about how to best contact Mark in the future.

Then a song come on the radio. I knew the tune but couldn’t place the song. I asked that it be turned up because I LOVED the song. Then I realized why I recognized it…it had been the ring tone for R when he called.

Hmmm…4 months earlier I broke down to the point that I had to pull the car over when I heard that song. But that day, I was ok. In fact, I was really great. It came on as I was looking out the window, driving very near R’s home, thinking about another man. And I was ok.  Really ok. I knew at that very moment that I was going to be ok. There were other fish in the sea. And even if there was not another fish for me, I had great friends like these girls. I was ok.

Then…

It hit me. R would be contacting me that day. I knew it. It went through my head. “He’s going to contact me.” I dismissed it. Why would he contact me that day versus any other? I had had the feeling before, but nothing materialized. It had never been this strong of a feeling before though. I drove home and plopped myself on the couch. I didn’t unpack. I just crashed.

I was hungover. I was tired. I was thirsty. I was hungry but not hungry enough to get off the couch. As the night went on I (for some reason) got more headachey.  My work phone went off indicating an email. I didn’t check it. It wasn’t anything anyway. It’s was a Sunday night, so it was highly unlikely that any issue was occurring that couldn’t wait until (1) my movie was over, and (2) I felt like getting up.

Movie over, I get up and wander to my phone. It’s been 90 minutes at least. I check it and I see in the subject line:

U there?

I started to shake. That was our little hello. An email with the subject “U there?” I was shaking. My stomach was flipping. I was sweating.  I responded: “What do you want?”

Then I called my sister. She wasn’t home. I left a message. I called my friend JMac who I had just been on the trip with. She answered. She told me I needed to be a little less angry. I didn’t feel angry I felt manic. Crazy. Completely discombobulated. Totally shaky. But not angry. She suggested I calm down and call him. Then she hung up.

He responded, “You have every right to hate me. I hate me.  I haven't contacted you thinking I can get over this. I can't.”

I didn’t respond.

He said, “Can we have lunch tmrw.”

“Why? And why now? I'm trying to be really positive and not angry (so please don't infer any "tones" here)...but what exactly do u expect to accomplish at lunch?”

“I understand your feelings. Can I call u tmrw.”

I didn’t respond. I thought about it. I didn’t want to be hurt again. I didn’t want to go through a difficult conversation in an attempt to soothe any mental injuries he had. Plus I had just met this really great guy!! And I had met someone else on Match that I was really interested in. Why now? Why did he have to go upend my world at this specific moment?

The next morning I sent, “I have a few things going on today away from my desk and would like to plan them out. Let me know when you are thinking of calling and if we are lunching. I need to get them on my calendar.”

He responded “Can I call you on your cell in 5 minutes?”

“Yes.”

March - Part 3

Sunday I woke up, knowing I had to go home that day. It was awful. I couldn’t stay in my cocoon on the “comfort couch” any longer. I had to go home. I had to go to work on Monday.

I’m sure we ate something…or at least my sister did for breakfast. Another movie was probably watched, showers taken. Then she mentioned that the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile was going to be in town and she really wanted to see it. She suggested lunch afterwards at my favorite restaurant eating my favorite thing…chicken flippers. They are strips of chicken with a beer batter cover, deep fried with French fries. Delish.

I was not interested. The Weinermobile, sure. But no on the flippers. I just couldn’t eat.

So we went to the Wienermobile and looked around, climbed inside, got some pictures, and even got our whistles for singing the Bologna song from our youth. The photos are good. If you didn’t know me, you would think that they were just photos of a good time.

However,

if you know me you know that there was something wrong. You can see the pain in my eyes. You can see the struggle to smile. You can tell.

I didn’t want to go to lunch.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the meal. Not even the 4 or 5 delicious golden fried chicken flippers I so cherish.  But I knew I needed to eat something. If I didn’t I would have a bad ride home. I needed some sort of fuel. So we went for flippers. I ate 2 or 3. Not all, and not many fries. I just couldn’t. So my sister took them home.

Then I started driving home. Most of the 3.5 hour drive was uneventful. Until I got to the metro area I live in. I live on the west side of the metro and I had to cross through it to get home. I didn’t think it would be an issue. But then I saw a silver SUV.

just like his.

I went into a huge anxiety attack with my stomach flipping and palms sweating. I started crying again. The hit of anxiety came every time I saw a car like his. This went on for months.

I had one stop to make on my way home. My friend Sally’s house. She was doing my hair that day. So I stopped. I asked her to shave it all off. My sister had called her before I got there and had warned her that I was pretty wounded so she knew what to expect. Sally had also been one of the friends who had kept in touch all weekend to make sure I was ok.

Sally refused to shave it off, but she would cut it shorter, into something I really wanted. She said that if I still wanted it all shaved off in one month she would do it. No questions asked. But right now was not the time to make this drastic of a decision. We talked. She colored and cut. Another friend was there as well. I poured out my heart. But I didn’t cry, so that was something.  On my way out Sally asked if I had been eating. I said not really no. I couldn’t commit to eating anything hard. Banana’s were ok. Beyond that I was not interested.  She looked at me and said, “No one else is going to say this, but me. We’re big girls and we have the extra stored up. Don’t eat if you don’t want to. It’s ok.”

I went home. I cleaned out his things and put them in bags for him to pick up. I took down all the pictures. I put the gifts in bags to be sent to Goodwill. I purged anything that reminded me of him. I went to bed, knowing that the next day was going to be the first of many hard days. 

And as it does, the next day came. And the day after that. And then another. I walked around with a cloud over my head that I was sure was visible to everyone. The pain was still there but it had dulled a bit.  I would cry. I was very angry. I tried contacting him. I threatened to bring him to small claims court due to a vacation we were supposed to go on that I had paid for and he promised to reimburse me for and never did.

THEN

I had an epiphany. I needed to let it go. I needed to stop carrying the anger in my heart. I needed to just stop.  I called one last time to say I forgive the debt. That I hope he was happy and that I wished him well. And I let go. Like releasing a balloon my anger went away. I felt better. Not just for a few minutes or hours but I felt better. Like by letting that go, I was finally letting him go.

And I had fun. I went on vacations with my girlfriends. I went to New Orleans and Puerto Rico for long weekends. I took a hip hop dance class and I LOVED it. I took a tap class and liked it a lot less. I went out to dinner or for drinks almost every night. I joined Match.com and I went out on dates with lots of men. I met several guys I liked. I had coffee with one guy for about an hour. He liked me too but decided to see another girl instead and he had a rule about one at a time.

No worries. I understood. It was Match after all. We were all in the same hunt and just because someone didn’t jump at me didn’t mean they didn’t get to jump at someone else. We connected but it was ok. I understood.

Then I went up north for a girls weekend. I brought cute clothes and an even cuter attitude. I was ready for some real fun.

March - Part 2

The next morning I woke up. Rested because of the sleep aid. I don’t know what it was that he gave me, but it worked great. I was still so sad. But I got up and called my Dad. I told him I didn’t want to talk to Mom about it now. She’d just ask me something awful like “What did you do to make this happen?”  A meteor could hit me and it would somehow be my fault in her eyes. I wasn’t up for it. He asked if he could tell her. I said sure. I told him I’d call her in a few days once I was over the initial stuff.

I hung up and went to shower. My sister asked if she could call Dad while I showered. I said sure. I cried in the shower. I couldn’t help it. My sister offered to make some breakfast, I really wasn’t interested. We just crashed. I don’t remember what we talked about. I remember being in a ball the whole time. At one point she suggested a nap then maybe going to a movie. I said sure. I gave her my phones again.

She napped. It was hard on her. She later said it was the most exhausting and stressful weekend she’d ever had. I believe it.

While she napped I pulled out my computer. I had employee evaluations due on Friday (the day before) that I had gotten a pass on but they needed to get done. I started them but couldn’t really get into a groove. Instead I wrote him a letter. I typed for quite a while. I don’t know what the letter said. I destroyed it later, along with 3 or 4 others that I wrote in the next few months. I know those 3 or 4 were filled with hate, venom, and anger. They called him names.  But the first letter I think was filled with sadness. All the sadness that was in my soul. Probably some anger too. Wistfulness. And a lot of pain. But I tried to get it out and into that letter.

My sister woke up and asked me how I was. I was GREAT! Not just GREAT but

GREAT!

I was manic. I was going 100 miles an hour. I had sloughed off that sadness and anger. It was gone! I was a new woman! I didn’t need him or his crap! I was just fine, thankyouverymuch!

She looked at me like I was an alien. Like I had done a backwards flip, cannon balling right off the deep end while she was sleeping. She said something like, “What have you been up to?” I responded I wrote him a letter. Her face went white. I explained it was on my computer and I was not going to send it or anything, I just needed to get it out. She regained some color and explained that she was worried that I had come in an taken my phones back while she was sleeping. No, I assured her, I was not “that girl.”

We ate some left over sloppy joe’s (seriously I would eat her sloppy joe’s every meal of every day if I could.) Then I started slipping. Soon enough I was back in the fetal position. No wonder they call it “manic depressive.”  So she scooped me up and we went to a movie. Alice in Wonderland in 3D. It was a pretty day out. The kind of day that promises Spring. The movie was good (my first 3D movie.) The whole time I was still in a ball. I had my feet up on a handrail and I was curled up. Even my sister noticed.

It is amazing the amount of pain true heartache causes. Physical pain. It was incredible. Friends texted and checked in on me. When I said I was with my sister they sounded relieved. I’m sure they were worried. One friend suggested looking up information on grieving. She put it so well, “He’s dead, he just didn’t have the good graces to actually die.” I put that on my list of “to do’s” when I got home.

Home. It was Saturday. Sunday was the next day and I needed to drive home. I would need to go back to that place that would remind me of him. I needed to clean his stuff out and make it available for when he was coming on Friday. The sheer thought of it started the waterworks again. Throwing it all away. Photos, gifts, tokens, what should stay and what should go?

Through all of it…I knew he’d come back. I knew. Like a mother knows the specific sound of her child’s cry. I knew he would be back. That deep gut instinct that my Mother always told me to follow said, in a very quiet whisper, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.” I know, with hindsight being 20/20 it is easy to say this now. But I knew.

But he didn’t call, or email, or text the whole weekend. Nothing. I heard nothing from him. Every time I thought about it I got sadder. Every time my blackberry dinged I checked. It was never him. Every time I wanted it to ding, it wasn’t him either (or anyone else.) I had to change that ding. The ding reminded me of him. So a new ding was chosen. Silly yes, but it had to happen. That stupid gut instinct had to be shut the hell up. He didn’t want me. He had thrown me away like a piece of garbage. I was nothing to him. He had already forgotten about me. I was not even a part of his memory anymore.

We didn’t do much that night. A boy called my sister to talk. They had just started talking on Match.com. I told her I was going to take a walk. She said no, she’d handle it. She told the boy what had happened and that she just couldn’t  talk now, but could she call him on Sunday when I left? He said yes. Take care of your sister, we’ll talk again soon.

Their 2 year anniversary is coming up.

Saturday night found me laying on the comfort couch…really other than to use the bathroom and go to the movie I didn’t leave it. I was looking at the sleeping pills.

Were there enough?

Could I take them all and be done with the pain and sadness? The one person I cared about most of all…the one person who made me believe in soul mates…didn’t want me.  I wasn’t going to find anyone else like him. He was unique. So what if I ended it? Did I really want to live in a world without him? That would show him, wouldn’t it!? I'd make sure they told him it was all his fault! I could be done with all of it and someone else could clean up the mess.

I put the pills down. He wasn’t worth it. Again, I wasn’t “that girl.” The one who killed herself over a stupid boy. I may have wished/begged for Death to come and put me out of my misery, but I was not going to help the Reaper along. Instead I prayed. I prayed to St. Jude (Patron Saint of lost causes, and frankly my Patron Saint) to help me. I asked that St. Jude help me get through this. That he help me be happy again. I didn’t want R back. I wasn’t asking for the world, I just wanted to feel happy again someday. I needed some strength.

I took one pill and I went to sleep...

crying.

March part 1

I hate March. I hate it more than any other month. Yes I live in the northern US and yes March is typically when it starts to get nice out, but I hate March.  

I hate it for a very personal reason. R and I broke up in March. March 18, 2010 as a matter of fact. He called me at work and broke up with me over the phone. I was devastated. Devastated doesn’t even begin to describe what I was…what I felt.

Devastated

Wreck

Stressed

Distraught

Heart broken

Deceived

Destroyed

Shattered

Lost

Broken.

Immediately after it happened I emailed by two best girlfriends at work and told them they had to come to where I was RIGHT NOW. They did. Thank God I was not at my desk but in the cafeteria when it happened. (I live in cubeville at work.) I cried for hours in that booth with my girls with me. Literally…hours. I couldn’t keep it together. I had flowers from him sitting on my desk from the day before. Red tulips.

I now hate red tulips.

I had to go to a meeting that afternoon. I had to get those flowers off my desk. I couldn’t just put them in the kitchen with a  “free” tag, because they would have ended up on a friends desk (because I’m lucky like that.)  I took them to a friend in a different building where I knew I would never have to see them again. An acquaintance really. Someone I had done work with, whom I liked, who I valued as a co-worker. She was the first person I thought of when I wanted to get rid of them.  Her team made a big deal about them. I did everything I could not to cry when I explained what had happened and why I couldn’t have them near me. She popped up and hugged me so hard. I started to cry again and she hugged me even harder.

I told her that she could keep them or give them to someone else. I didn’t care as long as they didn’t end up on my floor.  She was wonderful to me. We talked for a few minutes and I had to leave for a meeting. I don’t know what she did with them. She could have thrown them in the garbage for all I cared. We are friends now. Real friends.

I went to my meeting. I had bad news to deliver to my team. It was all I could do to keep it together and run the meeting. I “saw” myself from above leading the meeting. Head down, arms spread out on the table in front of me as though I was a tripod, forehead inches from the table.

And I told them what happened. There was an audible gasp from someone…someone who hated me then and still hates me.  Even she was shocked. They all were. I explained that I was not going to be in the next day. I was not sure about Monday. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

I finished the meeting and went to my manager’s desk. I explained what happened. That I was leaving for the day and was not going to be in on Friday. She told me to do what I needed to do. Take the time I needed. Whatever that meant to me. It was the nicest thing she’s ever done in my 4 years of working with her.

I went home. I went to bed and cried. I cried all night. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think. A few friends called me to talk to see if I needed anything, to see if I was ok. Was I ok? No. I wasn’t. I was a wreak. I was destroyed. My heart felt like it had been thrown under a convoy of 18-wheelers.

The next day I went into the office, eye’s puffy and red from lack of sleep and crying, to drop off a “game” for a co-worker’s bridal shower. Yep, a bridal shower that I was supposed to co-host in a couple of days. The universe has a really sick sense of humor. The co-worker that I was meeting with for that hugged me, and suggested that I call my doctor for a sleep aid prescription. Then I was on my way to my sister house 3.5 hours away. I spent the time calling the doctor (and crying through it), going through my MP3 player and deleting all the songs that conjured up even the slightest thought of him, and crying. There was a lot of crying.

I didn’t eat. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t commit to eating anything more than a banana. I couldn’t even finish that. Someone suggested a protein drink. I tried…I couldn’t drink it. I ended up throwing it away.

I got to my sister’s town and stopped at a grocery store and ShopCo for the prescription. It wasn’t ready. They thought it was a joke or something because they didn’t have me in their computer. My sister, yes. Me, no.  Yeah, nice joke. I thought it was all a joke too. One big frickin hilarious joke. I wandered around ShopCo with sunglasses on to cover my eyes.

I got to my sister’s. I went right to the “comfort couch.” I laid down and I cried. I cried until I had no tears left. I told her everything that happened. I wanted to die. She made me sloppy joe’s. My favorite thing in the world to eat. I ate one. I started a second and ended up spitting out the bite I was taking and tossing the rest. She put in a movie…she worked so hard trying to find one that would cheer me up that didn’t have any mention whatsoever of a love scene or people being in love, or even words that started with the word “L.”

Then bed. I made her take my phone and work phone with her. I think…or she made me give them to her. Either way, they were in another room that night. And each moment she was not there to supervise me.