Dear Inner Self,
I hope through these confusing and muddled times you find strength. I hope that you realize you honestly do deserve better. I hope that you always remind yourself that your daughter needs a positive role model…and even if it hurts, grin and bear it through all those unmet expectations and faulted plans. For one day, it will all work out…and while the cliched idea that good things come to those who wait is always pressing in the forefront of your mind….know it is true. And that you will find your prince in the end…even if you have to kiss a thousand and one frogs.
Dear Id,
Destroy. Make him suffer. Pack up his things, put them in a garbage bag, tape a Post-It stating exactly this: “There are four basic human needs – food, sleep, sex, and revenge….oh, and know this….my silence is not weakness, it is the beginning of my revenge.” Then leave it by the front door with a box containing my dignity and self respect.
…and drum roll please.
Dear Ego,
Wow. You have got some problems, girl! Oh, No, He, Didn’t! type of shit! Damn. Go eat some chocolate, spill your guts to your girlfriends, #1 (and only) fan, your boss, and anyone else who will listen…process everything before you listen to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb over there. You are too smart to let this loaf make you feel anything other than happy. The second he starts putting up walls or breaking yours down…do what any other “single” girl would do…line up another Mr. Right Now, so that when you need to get over him, you can do so by getting under someone else. Classic sexual sorbet if you will….because what better way to distance yourself from your last mistake than 6″ of sheer and unbridled pleasure!
Ahh…five mini dark chocolate wanna-be Reeses Peanut Butter cups from Trader Joes, and I feel almost at my baseline of sanity. Here is the deal….I do not want to upset the beast to the point where then this pseudo-fucktart-idea of a relationship is shot to shit. I enjoy the laissez-faire attitude of it all, I really, really do. I also need certain things from him…like a date to the Ed Sheeran concert in two weeks….a housemate to help offset my non-existent child support fund because why not just appropriately bone every dead beat out there, someone to take me and 2 other people to the Yankee Game in 3 weeks…and proof to my daughter that everyone doesn’t want to up and leave her mommy. That maybe I am someone people should try to hold on to.
However…this back and forth emotional dance him and I are doing is becoming antiquated. He is kind of like what the Macarena is to the current dance scene. Sure, you will do it, while drunk at your friend’s wedding…but you would rather be practicing the dirty dancing move with a Ryan Gosling look-a-like (by the way, Mr. Grey and I tried that….it was funny….how dare we!). I was hoping that 30 days ago, when I sat him down and read him the FWB rule book, he would understand that this was all it was. Do I want more? Of course. Do I want him to realize what all my friends see in me? Yes. Do I want him to find me irresistible? Undoubtedly. Does he? Part of me thinks he does. Part of me is continuing to entertain this demented idea that he is honestly so afraid of me because I am someone long term.
See, I happen to have this problem with a lot of people I date. They are all looking for long term and for Ms. Perfect…in I stroll, offering them support, nurturing encouragement that their inner self is beautiful…and what am I left with? mistaking my kindness for weakness. Time, and time again. This is the outcome. They feel the need to use me to their advantage. I am like the dating self-esteem booster. Feeling down on yourself? Luck not working for you? Call Elle! In just three easy weeks of constant approval, she will make you feel 100$ better about yourself, sanity back guaranteed.
Seriously. It’s like there are wishes in one hand and shit in the other…which one will fill up first? The optimistic realist that I am would like to believe it’d be slightly favored that one would end up with more wishes and less shit….but have we analyzed my life lately?
I have no support from anyone. I have a few friends and I know they mean well, but I think they are disconnected to how I actually feel. I feel alone. Lost. And like I literally mean nothing. I am depressed. I feel like all the horrid things my ex-husband said about me for eight long years are confirmed true based on the relationships I continue to seek out. I feel like I am not deserving of love. And I know, we seek the love we feel we deserve…I mean, how much more clearly do I need to draw the lines on the wall? So, I am going to take what I can from love right now. And if that means a quick smash and dash…then so be it. If that means that I have to put up with temper tantrums and indecisive mood swings…bring. it. on.
I feel that maybe I have no right to wish that I am ever going to be happy…you know like maybe this is just my destiny. My fate is to just be a single mom with no social life who dotes on her child. Who shows up at dinners with my waspy parents and my brother and his girlfriend (because that relationship was approved….) alone with just my daughter. Who appears at social functions friends and their new spouses with their new children host by myself…mingling with people I have known all my life but suddenly don’t know at all. Potentially because once I told everyone I was getting a divorce and not making it work with my fucktart husband, I was disowned. I was lectured on how I didn’t put my friends first and how I was a bad friend because I wouldn’t make myself available for destination weddings and lame bridal parties. I was made to feel guilty by these very people who incessantly told me I deserved better. And here I was trying to make better, by myself for myself, and I was told it still wasn’t good enough.
Maybe this is just it. Maybe I am not good enough. Maybe I will never be good enough for anyone. Look, I have been dating since I was 16 years old! I am 33 years old…and I am soon to be divorced with a child. Fuck, I had to go to court to file child support….I am renting in an area where I honestly don’t want to send my daughter to school. My parents are away right now visiting my brother…and I was not even invited. I was actually only asked to feed the cats and reminded to take in the mail as if I am 17 and have never taken care of myself, a child, or a house before. It is shockingly ironic that I am not institutionalized right now diagnosed with having had a nervous breakdown.
Imagine going through one of my episodes by yourself. Imagine going through a divorce alone…or while going through it having everyone tell you how you are so loveable and so great, only to date three different people who all hurt you. Imagine parenting alone….ha. Imagine having to pay bills alone in a house that once had two incomes. Imagine having to ask your parents daily to help you and being turned down because they are too preoccupied with enjoying their empty nest syndrome. Yes, enjoying it. Imagine your sibling basically said “eh, what do you expect?” when you try to seek advice on how to better manage anything.
Imagine the one thing you want is a basic companionship from the opposite sex…not a pony ride off in to the sunset…not flowers on your birthday (although it was a nice touch). Just a friend. Just someone to sit there and say “everything is going to work out,” while hugging me and letting me snot on their shoulder. Someone to understand when I need a vat of chocolate and the Simpsons on my TV. Someone who understands that I have emotions and just like how yours are bothered when someone does the complete opposite of what you would either do for them or from what you expected…mine are as well. That despite my uncanny ability to strap it on like a man and pretend like I can really piss the furthest…I still bleed for five days a month without dying. I am a female. I am emotional. I am extremely sensitive…and this doesn’t mean you have to walk on egg shells, it just means that knowing that people should take better care of me. Especially since I take such good care of everyone else around me.