I just got out of the bath. I literally don’t even have pants on
yet. My hair is wrapped up in a
towel. I need to clip my nails. I should be doing chemistry or geology
homework. But I can’t. I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. I have been known to over-share. And I have been doing that a lot lately all
over social media and to my friends in private.
But there is a lot I haven’t been talking about. I’ve been bottling things up for weeks,
hiding in my schoolwork, focused on anger, putting on a brave face and smiling
through a soul-crushing, earth-shattering pain.
I know what people will say: he’s not worth it, you did it to yourself,
blah blah blah, and they would be right!
But it doesn’t change the fact that here I am, in nothing but a towel,
feeling miserable and heartbroken and confused and fucked up and twisted all
around inside.
Last week my therapist asked me what
I wanted my life to be like six months from now. I had no idea what to say, so I wiped the
snot off my nose and hated myself and told her I just didn’t want to feel fucking
rotten. I don’t know who I am anymore
and I don’t know how I got to this shitty place in my life. I did it to myself. YES!
But why? And how do I get
back? What the fuck happened to me?
When I was 14, I cheated on my
boyfriend at the time because he had cheated on me and it seemed like the
reasonable thing to do.
When I was 27, I was about to sleep
with a guy and he told me he had a girlfriend and I said, “What does that have
to do with me?” But I was moving across
the country in a few days and it seemed like no big deal to be the “other woman”
with a guy I’d never see again. But then
I did see him again two years later and he cheated on someone else with me.
Almost every guy I have been in a
relationship with has cheated on me, and this trend goes all the way back to
sixth grade! And some of the ones who
didn’t cheat left me for someone else. I
took a break from dating for a long time because I was sick of being treated
this way, and I worked on myself. I went
to therapy, went back to college, moved to a new place, faced a lot of my
fears, traveled, met new people, and survived a lot of shit.
As soon as I decided to start dating
again, this guy swooped in looking like everything I had ever wanted. He was sweet, attentive, sensitive, and we
had so many things in common as far as what we liked and didn’t like and how we
imagined our futures. It was easy to
imagine our future selves living that dream together, and I hadn’t felt that way
about anyone pretty much ever. And
before I knew it, I was in love.
I loved him. I opened myself up to him in ways I have
never opened myself up to anyone ever ever ever! I poured everything of myself into him and
our relationship and he took took took and never gave a damn thing back. I forgave him when he cheated on me last
summer and gave him a second chance, something I had never done before. He took advantage of that part of me and
drained me even more. A few weeks ago,
after we had been together for over two years and three months, he told me he
wanted to sleep with someone else. I
told him he couldn’t have both and he chose her, even though he said she wasn’t
worth it and that he didn’t want to lose me.
He still chose her.
They always do.
And now I’m sitting here, wrapped in
a towel, miserable, heartbroken, pissed off, violated, betrayed, hating myself
for missing him and simultaneously wanting to punch him in the throat. I think about him less and less, though I
haven’t gone a whole day without thinking about him. I have played every role in the cheating
trifecta, and none of them feel good. I
had to learn that on my own. I guess
other people do too.
I’ve always thought that part of
loving someone was giving them the space and freedom to be themselves and to
learn and grow. I hope he does learn and
grow from this experience, but he probably won’t and that has no bearing on my
life anymore anyway. Like I said, he
made his choice and it wasn’t me.
But I can still choose me. Because I am smart and funny and kind and
generous and I love with everything I have and everything I am and I am
adorable and I have nice tits and I am passionate and I work hard and I have
dreams and goals and desires. I deserve
so much more than this pile of nothing he left me with. I feel like such a disaster right now, and it’s
going to be a long process to clean this up.
Maybe I should date myself, like Ann Perkins on Parks and
Recreation. I think that is a great
idea.
But for now, I’m going to eat some
chocolate and read about volcanoes.
