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As I sit in a veritable puddle of my own tears, I realize
that this whole healthy relationship thing is exceptionally difficult. I
suppose that everyone else has this figured out already, but I’m often late to
the party. From the look on his face, I can tell that this is not nearly as bad
as it seems from the inside. No, it is much, much worse. As my life rushes
through my mind as fast as… well, faster than… the speed of light; It’s the
speed of the darkness that’s left when the star has been dead for so long that
the light has already passed through the retina, through the complex folds of
my brain, through the back of my skull and beyond… as my life rushes by, it’s
clear that his has suspended completely. He is frozen, mouth agape, wondering
how still he must be in order to let this reality slip by and go back to the
reality in which things made sense to him.
But
here we are. Both of us afraid, of life certainly, but more immediately, of me.
Clearly I’m volatile. Clearly I’m unstable. Clearly I’m so fucked up that this
man who thought that he had cornered the market on mental illness is afraid to
move. But it’s beyond my control. And so I sit and cry ravines into my face
while the cats bathe themselves in my lap like this is a completely normal
situation. The sad truth: it is. I don’t know where all the tears come from. I
don’t even think I’m a particularly sad individual, but then there they are.
Out of the blue. Unwelcome guests that swoop out from my core like ephemeral
demons off the tip of a flame. I’m used to it <shrug>. But to expect
someone else to embrace it… that’s ludicrous. Cat ladies become so for a
reason.
Back to the issue at hand, though, there is a
man in my living room who loves me and does not understand what is happening.
He wants to know why the fact that he would like to go feed his fish seems to
be the greatest tragedy of my life. He doesn’t seem to hear things the way that
I do. He heard, “Hey, I’m going to go feed my fish.” I heard, “You disgust me
and I can’t stand sitting on this couch with you and your stupid cats thinking
how I ended up with such a fat, useless, mean, and fundamentally uninteresting
person. I am now going to lie to you about my pescal responsibilities in a
desperate attempt to get out of this place.”
How can
he not understand that? What an idiot! Didn’t his mother teach him that every
word that comes out of another person’s mouth is laced with hidden meaning and
degradation? Guess she really dropped the ball on that one, eh? So he’s
obviously ill-equipped for this situation and decides that dealing in reality
will bring about some sort of resolution. A cautious start, “You’re upset.” I
return the serve, “Whatever, it’s fine.” Ok, the volley continues,
“It
doesn’t seem fine.”
“Just
go, it’s fine.”
“If it
was fine, you wouldn’t be crying.”
Oof. “Whatever,
you’re going to do what you want anyway.”
Ungh. “What
is that supposed to mean?”
Gah. “You
don’t care what I want, so just go.”
Fuhf. “What
are you talking about?!”
The
ball bounces to a halt and I throw down my racquet. I don’t want to fight. I
don’t know how this turned into a fight. I just want him to love me, that’s
all. I want to know it in my heart. I want to not need him to say it
constantly. I want to not want him to scoop me up in my teary mess and tell me
that he’s not going to leave, that it’s ok to be sad, that I’m just a human
being and I don’t need to have my shit together all the time… that normal
people won’t circle around you like a vulture and start picking at the soft
flesh of your belly before you’ve even stopped breathing. I want him to know
without asking that what I know of love is not something that people would want
in their lives. What I know of love is that it’s dark and ugly and painful.
What I know of love is that, at worst it’s traumatic, and at best it’s distant.
What I know of love is that regardless of how strong it is, it doesn’t stop
people from hurting you or just leaving. I don’t want to need him to convince
me that it can be different…
…But I do.
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