#4yx

So 4YX and I are also kind of friends again and I won’t even start writing about that yet. But I might meet up with him this week. I haven’t seen him since October 2013.

I hope I’m doing the right thing. I’m not so deluded as to thinking he’s still in love with me, like he was…the last day I saw him.

He was very quick, though, to follow me on all forms of social media. That means, like, nothing, right?

I tried to tell him, I’m a completely different person now. I like dogs now. Really, really big dogs.

Also, I’ve had like, a lot of sex. Like a phenomenal amount of sex and I regret..only some of it.

Maybe not that last part.

At what point in a break-up are you really broken up? Is it the moment you say those words, officially, I can’t do this anymore, after he’s said it first but neither of you knew if it was real? After you’ve crawled out of the salt water and remembered to put your heart back in your chest?

Is it the moment you open your eyes and realize you’re in the back seat of your best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s car and his hands are tracing promises on the small of your back, and you whisper into his neck, there’s no going back from here. Is it the moment when you say I’m not the Eve to your Adam, I’m the snake, I don’t believe in this B.S anyway? Is it the moment you realize you just don’t miss him anymore? Is it when you wonder, maybe I’m just dead inside, but then, what’s this hole, where you used to be?

Or is it when you said goodbye, for real, you showed up outside of his work, your confidante of seven years; but then your lips were stuck together and you buried your tears into your sleeve but not his, because you couldn’t talk to him? You sat across from him, and you knew you wouldn’t call this stranger again?

It’s been exactly 1 year since I’ve seen his face. Is that when I count being single from? It’s the moment I saw him holding onto feelings and I crushed his hope by disappearing into just about everything else. I realized, we’re done. There’s nothing left, here.

- - - - - On my birthday, when I thought he didn’t text me happy birthday, I freaked out. But I don’t know what I wanted. Not closure. Just the familiarity, a semblance of my old life and this person I used to be when I was with him.

But then we broke up and I ripped off all my skin, I have no idea who I am anymore. I’m impulsive and self destructive, I’m instant gratification, and oh what are consequences?

I’m open to new experiences and also deflecting from a lot of my other issues going on, but it’s not the breakup per se.

It was a catapult, or maybe something smaller. The middle domino or the last few drops of water before the flood, dirty bathtub water spilling into the kitchen. I’m someone else, but not really, not entirely. I didn’t break. I didn’t emerge, either. It’s not that my moves now aren’t calculated the way they were before, because, they still are. I’m running out of metaphors.

Something that was sleeping woke up inside me, this hunger. It’s been consuming me and everyone that comes into contact with me and I don’t know how to stop it or if I should keep feeding it and where I’m going. - - - - -

So when is one single? If it’s the latter, then I’ve only been single for a year, only, only, forever, not enough.

- - - - -

I’m not alone, right?

So I’m just sitting on my bed, tears and cold hands in my birthday. A little bit of it is a soft tugging at my heart, because I have a great support system of friends. Another part is also probably frustration at…life and feeling aimless. But the trigger was actually that divorce note (no worries). I read it a few times and then I made the connection to my ex and then I kept reading it and…salty eyes.

For 8 years, well maybe 7, I don’t remember about the first one, he would call me at midnight to wish me happy birthday. We dated for over 4, our awkward tango confused things. He used to talk about marriage and…well, I don’t know if you guys remember our breakup but some of you really helped me during the hardest parts, right before we broke up. Helped me see I shouldn’t keep holding onto him just because we were together for so long and he was my backbone.

That letter…is pretty much exactly what he would have said, or did say, when he could. I wish he had written something like that. I’ve been feeling guilty over the hearts and feelings I’ve accidentally trampled on this year. My friends have told me, the ones I feel guilty about, it’s not my fault. I had close male friends..a few of them, I guess, had feelings for me and I didn’t handle it properly. Or at least those are my thoughts. The girls have said I did my best, but I still…

I did this random “I’m sorry” thing, to some of them. But it’s my ex, I think. I write letters to him in my head, where I am sorry and I want him to be happy. I’m sorry I disciplined him and ugh.

Last year, we were broken up. He came to my new place on my birthday, gave me a perfect gift. A cheese tray / set. He still loved me. I could see it in his eyes. In love, but I wasn’t there.

This year, I texted him on his birthday, he said thanks, how’s your health. I’d just come back from my sexcation. I didn’t know how to answer. So I didn’t.

And now it’s my birthday and nary a word, and I just feel…like something, everything is different. Missing. I’m over him, for sure. But this guilt gnaws at me, and I’m itchy.

Sorry this is long, no one has to read. I should post this in my livejournal or something. How I managed to write all this by text..

In the moment it was cathartic. Now. I don’t know.

I just….yeah.

—

So. Being back home, and the New Year coming up has brought about that clichéd desire to analyze past misgivings and what’s that, blah blah self improvement. I’m generally constantly rewriting my story and trying to gauge how I can correct what usually feels like an ever increasing list of flaws. All the reassessing…well, a few of my friends here specifically are always able to give me just the right amount of clarity.

It’s weird writing this on Facebook, but I guess I don’t know your email? Texting this seems bizarre, whatever this is exactly. I was looking at our earlier interactions, like in October, and you wrote quite the long paragraphs. I like that, though.

So this is what I do. I talk a lot, in circles, riddles, really. I’m wordy. It’s the worst. I write some terrible prose that I share with few, some of them love it, some don’t understand, and obviously some don’t care for it. For someone that talks so much, I can be quite terrible with communication. I’m honest, I suppose. I don’t lie. I just don’t always properly convey my wants or needs. I’m trying, just with anyone. I’m getting better. Writing is easier for me, though I still structure things in a bizarre abstract way, because that’s just how I think. Sometimes under the heavy of the dark, I let someone crawl into my head. Face pressed into the covers, I’ll let my guard down. It doesn’t happen often. But if it does, it’s usually in the quiet of the night. I’m sorry about that.

So maybe you have no idea why I’m writing this. Given the distance, the time frame and my inability to form structured, to the point sentences when I should, I thought to myself…I’m just going to do what I normally do when I’m trying to explain…myself. I suppose. I’d rather actualize these parts now, because they *are* me. I’m not going to special snowflake syndrome myself, but I’m, yes, a complicated person. Obviously in the last bit I’ve given off some red flags and…I don’t know, it’s weighing on me. I’ve always been perfectly happy carrying my burdens, I’m well aware not everyone wants or needs to…or even can process, well, me. I’m not depressed or anything, if that’s where this seems to be going. I just overanalyze everything and…I am one of those people that needs to get things out. Or conversely be checked in with so that my brain doesn’t create some ridiculous doomsday scenario. This act of explaining functions as an addition to my “run while you can” but maybe I should stop listening to so much Fiona Apple. “paper bag” and “fast as you can.” those have always…resonated with me. Maria Mena, too. “internal dialogue.” “your glasses.”

2013 has been a bizarre transitional year for me. I told you some of it. If at the end, all of this, just this, the early honesty and implications of mental scarring (I am who I am.) is not too frightening, then maybe one day you can ask, what I’m on about, or just…why. And I will tell you.

But now. I’m at this frustrating crossroads and I can’t say 2014 will miraculously change things. I’ll do my best, of course. But the erratic behaviour…I’m sorry about that. I can’t say that’s me, not so early on, not out loud. In my head, that’s another place, I suppose.

I’m still navigating the waters. It feels largely directionless right now. Sometimes more drowning than not. I hate it.

I had planned on swimming by myself. Learning when to breathe, how to breathe, when to come up for air.

Is this even making any sense? Maybe I shouldn’t write things at 5 am. I’d spent the previous months, well, fucking about, running away. Pushing people away. Maybe even callously discarding them, I don’t know. Everything was messy. It still is. I’m going to be okay, I’m always…Okay.

But I never would have thought that I’d be writing this…whatever this is, a few months ago.

But you appear to be this seemingly happy, functioning being. The last thing I would want is to waste your time. Or be this…like negative energy.

I know it’s early still. Maybe people just reveal these things later. But again, transitional year, erratic behaviour and apparently, in keeping with the spirit of honesty…I just thought I’d try and explain again, one last time. So writing this, half asleep, because I can’t say I don’t miss you and agh, I don’t know, give you another chance to run away, no hard feelings. But if for some reason this novel hasn’t frightened you off, feel free to call me after you get off work.

Or let me know if you do or do not want inebriated snapchats. I’m not a lush, I swear, though.