just in case you're sorry, i've compiled a few things i think you ought to know.
first off, i don't believe that you are sorry. i believe that you are every bit as stubborn as i am, and that you're still sure you're right...just like me. i'm quite certain, in fact, that you're not even reading this (which clearly isn't stopping me from writing it. so there, we're even.)
i'd like to finish this thing we've got going, but i really have no idea how. i want to finish this as equals; both right, both wrong. how nice and grown-up it would be to just nod and split the difference. don't you think? but there i go again, imagining the best of both of us. we're simply not that civilized.
if you are reading, no doubt you're waiting for an apology, a concession; any sign of weakness that proves you right. i'm not going to give it to you. i'm writing this to tell you who i have become. let me give you a snapshot of my day, today's as good as any....
it's a monday. j wakes me at 9:30, i tell him to set the alarm for 10:30. i hit the snooze until about 11, cuddled up on two pillows and sweet dreams, covered in down. it's gray outside. motivation to move is minimal. but motivate i do, to the kitchen, where i make myself iced coffee with hazelnut creamer. onto the computer, where i begin to converse with my user-friendly version of the outside world. i shower. get dressed in new clothes that i bought myself. do my hair - i just got the cutest cut, and it's shirley manson red. glad to be back to my natural color.
ms.lissa pulls up (yes, the car IS still in the shop. shut up.) and off i go, frozen lunch in hand. i'm as ready for this as i'm ever going to be. i get to work a few minutes early, as i have everyday so far. this is a very new streak for me, one that is so surprising that i'm quite invested in keeping it. it's nice.
i put my purse away in my drawer and jump right in by filing everything in the inbox. i get complimented on the window display i did on thursday; the assistant to someone important just loved it and bought one of everything. for a moment at least, my boss adores me. she is not a funny or warm woman, she doesn't openly adore much. it's a thrill.
after filing, i take it upon myself to refill the drink coolers. this means hauling cases of drinks in from the back, and bending and twisting to get everything in. by the end of the day, i have done another display, hauled more boxes and waited on a dozen customers, all without breaking a sweat, and all of this in three-inch-heeled boots.
j comes to rescue me, and we go get dinner (take out) and i'm finally allowed pj's. it still seems ridiculous to me that pajama pants aren't considered workplace appropriate. if they only knew how efficient i would be...
i turn on monday night football (saints 23, ravens 3. take THAT, michael vick!) and tend to my sickly boyfriend. after a cigarette, i hop up and go clean out my bathroom. i come back, have another cigarette and a kiss, and start on the living room. i finish vacuuming at 12:40 am.
why am i telling you this? why do i presume that you even care? i don't dare presume that...it's just that i care. this is what happened when i let myself let you go and started focusing on me. because what i want you to take away from this is what can change in one small year...
the way we ended (so far at least), the anger and hurt followed by a slow letting go, it's been more difficult than i thought in some ways, and surprisingly easy in others. i don't miss you, at least not the you i left. i miss the you that i fell in love with once, the you that saved me from myself, the you that was my family. it's been so hard to reconcile my memories of you with what i know of you now...it has not been difficult to leave someone who, if you are to believed, thought so little of me. the trick has been to listen to what happened inside my head when you said all you did. i believed you. i understood your disgust. i agreed completely. that was my first mistake.
this year, this one small year...i never knew so much could change. i never knew i could change so much. this one is my comeback story, because this time there were no heroes. there was a boy, who loved me more than i have ever known. there were friends who took me out and made me eat. then there was me, making choices everyday. taking the long way. listening hard to that interior voice, fighting distraction and loving myself fiercely, and most of all.
i haven't learned it all. in fact, i am beginning to realize how much i don't know. they say this is the first sign of maturity. but i know what i know, and i know that you were wrong, and i was, too. if we were to sit down again, and it went the way of last time, could i keep my "fuck you" to myself? i honestly don't know. because it served two purposes: it hurt you back, and it got me away from you. this time i'd like to think that i would be above needing to hurt you back. that i've learned something about other people's insistance on tearing down someone else's inner self, that it's more about that inner self posing a threat to the web of lies that person tells themselves, that they are so invested in that version of reality that they will break someone's heart - someone they truly love - just so that they don't have to do the one thing that terrifies them: reconsider. question. change.
i know this, because it was there in my "fuck you." it isn't that you were completely wrong, i wasn't ready to hear you; and let's all face it, your delivery was assinine at best, vicious at worst. you couldn't hear me either. you stepped in a landmine and i tried so hard to tell you to stop before there was an explosion and you just. wouldn't. stop. both of us would probably claim self-defense, wouldn't we? we're both casualties at the hand of the other, and what more is there to say?
i took your advice. i did. i just did it in my own way, in my own time, when i was ready. and i guess the only question i have for you is, did you take mine?