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September 04, 2006

borne back against the ceaseless tide

September 3, 2006

Dear --,

This is what I did on Saturday night (in case you don’t remember, you went to the Black Cat): I put in a sad DVD so I could cry without making Herself suspicious.
When it was over I went to bed with a glass of wine and two Tylenol P.M. tablets, wishing I had the courage to take twenty, or thirty, or however many I needed.
Intellectually, I realized that I had no idea how many I would need to take for them to kill me instead of just making me very sick, so I took two and went to sleep instead.

You come down for a few hours on a Saturday or whenever and you’re a husband for that period of time, or maybe not, I don’t know. Maybe you’re just waiting to go back home to do some more laundry. At any rate, you didn’t even say good-bye to Herself or Moo when you left today.

Here is the problem: I don’t know how to do this any more. The first year, okay, it was all just getting used to it—you and Spooky Girlfriend and you and me and you and Spooky Girlfriend and me. The second year it was just concentrating on not being crazy any more and coming to terms.

I don’t want a third year. When I think about a third year my mind refuses to. I can’t figure out what I would be for a third year, and the only role I see for myself is that of “WRONGED PARTY.” That’s not who I want to be! The person I’m turning into—or who I have already turned into—is not who I want to be. I don’t like her very much, and I feel sorry for her. I don’t know which of those is worse.

You want to call somebody else “honey,” by all means, be my guest. You want to sleep with somebody else, I guess I can’t stop you. You want to live with somebody else, but not really. Or something. But where is my place? I see you less and less, which is what I was afraid would happen, and I behave more and more badly; ditto.

Am I your very own Greek chorus—always watching the action and commenting on it but never getting to play a part. Always on the sidelines. And no, I don’t know how to be less dramatic than this. I really don’t.

Can’t you just do what you need to do without dragging me into it and telling me, while you do that, that I have no business—or I should say ‘no fucking business’—being dragged into it?

Here is my truth: I think that Spooky Girlfriend is a worthless piece of shit.
It offends me—you can’t even imagine how much—that you could go from me to that. How you could is, as the saying goes, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. But hey, SG's your worthless piece of shit, right, honey?
No matter how much I love you and would like to think the best of you, this phrase comes to mind: When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

I’m sure I had a point, back when I was sober; I just don’t remember what it was.
I want you to come home.
I want you to feel about me the way I feel about you.
I want to not have wasted my life on you.
I want to not be a failure.

I want to be left alone until you work it all out.
To be honest, I really don’t think this is going to go in my favor. It’s part of why my emotions are so out of control lately. You make it seem that you want to be here—well, shit, it’s what you say—and all the while you make sure you are as far from here as possible, one way or the other.

But believe it or not I am still shocked, even at this late date, that this won’t end up the way I want it to. Bummer.

I hate this.

You’re going to have to take it on faith that I love you and that I’ll wait.
I’ll wait until you tell me to stop waiting.
But all this nonsense, and me getting hurt all the time, must stop.

p.s. Yes, I do realize this excess of emotion might all be because the medication I’ve been on for the past few years has left my bloodstream. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

Monday
I didn’t hear the phone ringing last night, but I heard it beep as I went to bed. I stopped listening to your message once it got to “I’m bored,” so I hope you weren’t asking me to come up and water your plants while you're gone, after that point.

Last night I dreamed I was driving a car in some kind of cave on a narrow stretch of road over water. The road was smooth and slick, as if water had worn it glassy. There was a groove in the side of the road and the driver’s side tires got caught in it. No matter how hard I tried to steer out of the groove, going over the side into the freezing cold water was inevitable, and that’s exactly what happened. When I woke up today this phrase of the old song was playing in the background of my mind, “How in the heck will I wash my neck, when it ain’t gonna rain no more.”

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)