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I believe if we pay attention, all of us occasionally bump into our own futures.
– from Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck
Twelve days, no posts. Bad blogger. Here’s what’s new:
1. I’m getting ready to head to Long Island on Thursday to be in a Saturday wedding of my closest friend from law school. I am really looking forward to it: my friend and her fiance (also a law school classmate) are perfect for each other and I am honored to stand up for them; many friends from school will be there as well; the dress is gorgeous (not that it matters – you wear what she tells you to wear and shut up about it – but it helps); and David’s coming with me. He was on the fence, 4 weeks ago when I had to RSVP a number, about whether he wanted to go, but one day on the way to work he handed me a letter. Among other things, it said he wanted to go with me so we could have our first dance. Have I mentioned that I adore him? I’m excited for our first road trip together, and I can’t wait to be at a fancy event with him all dressed up and looking handsome.
2. This weekend was my turn to plan a date weekend. I stressed and stressed over the restaurant for Friday. I’m not sure why – maybe because he’s not as adventurous an eater as I am, and so I kept finding restaurants I wanted to try but not seeing anything on the menu I thought he would like. Eventually I settled on J Gilbert’s, and it was lovely. The food was delicious (he had steak, as I knew he would) and the service was great, and it was a wonderful night. Saturday, I picked batting cages and mini-golf. I’m playing softball in a rec league this fall and I needed the batting practice, and I wanted to challenge David at putt putt. He kept assuring me there was no way I could win, but win I did, by one stroke. He kept claiming irregularities in the course (which, incidentally, was not very challenging; we’re going to try another place for a rematch), or that I cheated (which I did not, though I did get pretty lucky, including a hole-in-one), but in the end, the result stands.
Afterwards, we went and wandered around Wegman’s, which is the best grocery store ever, and bought some Spanish wine. Then we changed and went to dinner at Bilbo Baggins in Old Town, and despite good reviews online, was not very good at all. But I was really in it for the company, which was fantastic as always. We got ice cream cones for desert and wandered down by the waterfront, just talking, and then headed home. Yesterday was a little lazy in the morning, but then, since it was a beautiful day, we took a 9-mile bike ride into DC and back. Then we came back to my place and made dinner while watching the Emmy red carpet on E, football, the Emmys, more football, and the last game at Yankee Stadium. All in all, it was a great weekend. I’m always surprised at the way the weekend seems to last longer the more stuff I pack into it.
3. Back when I was in Boston, my roommate TequilaMary and I took the ferry to Salem.
Everything touristy was closed by the time we got there, so we just walked around and shopped mostly. But here are some neat photos of the things we saw. First, the windows at the Witch Museum:
Now, the garden of a mad genius:
He happened to have the largest sunflowers I’ve ever seen growing there as well (that’s TM’s hand, for scaling purposes):
Wandering down the main street, I came across this beautiful bench and, of course, had to take a picture (because it’s purple):
Finally, the pièce de résistance:
Yeah. That’s a liquor store called The Bunghole. So. Awesome.
4. It’s time to start looking for a new job. My current appointment ends early next September, which seems like a long time from now, but in this area, and in my field, it really isn’t that long, so I need to get on the ball. I never even updated my resume after I started this job, so I really am at square one. I hate this part, job hunting and interviewing. It’s like this is the time when everyone figures out what a fraud I am and I’ll never work again. I hate selling myself. Maybe I’ll just go be a tollbooth operator. How bad could that be?
5. New tv this week! As we speak, How I Met Your Mother is on, Heroes is on next, Grey’s Anatomy is Thursday, and over the next month or so, all my favorite shows come back! Yay!
“Real life hardly ever does it the way you want to tell it later.”
– Alice, in Range of Motion, by Elizabeth Berg
But sometimes it does.
Now I promise my blog is not going to become all “I’m in love” all the time, but you guys, I am, and I had the best weekend of my life this past weekend. We spent most of last weekend together, and many nights last week, just hanging out, running errands, and watching the Olympics, but it was very casual and low key, for various reasons. All of last week, though, he kept telling me how he was planning our first real date for Friday night and that I should dress up (which is code for “Wear the dress that started all of this”), and that he thought I would really love the restaurant he chose, and that he was going to come pick me up and come to the door and everything. He also told me about 10 times that he’d already picked out the shirt he was going to wear and that he thought I’d really like it, but that he wanted to buy new pants. It was so adorable. Saturday, he said, would be more casual, and he told me about the restaurant beforehand and let me pick a movie.
So Friday came and we rode the train home together, but each of us went to our own apartments to get ready. Around 8, he rang my doorbell, and I opened it shyly, and there he was, holding a single red rose (he’d brought me daisies last weekend) and looking so handsome in a white button down shirt with different colored blue stripes and new gray pants. I invited him in and gave him a kiss (or two or three, you know), and we just stood there grinning stupidly at each other (which happens a lot actually; we’re kind of dorks that way). He told me I looked great and we kissed some more and then we drove to the restaurant. As we got out of the car, he said, “We parked a little ways from the restaurant, and for good reason.” And as we walked out of the shadow of a building into the square, he pointed and said, “Full moon.”
As we walked to the restaurant, my heels kept getting stuck in the cobblestones (that’ll teach me), and he kept catching me so I wouldn’t fall. When we got to the restaurant, I didn’t look at the outside of it very closely because I thought I knew what it was, but it turned out I was wrong. When we got to our table and I looked at the menu, I realized he had chosen a Spanish restaurant . . . I can’t really explain the feeling I got, but I knew that he’d chosen it on purpose because he remembered that I had studied in Spain twice and loved it so much, and he wanted to take me to a place that would remind me of it. Have I mentioned that I love him?
He studied the wine list – he’s very into wine and I know nothing, though he’s trying to teach me – and ordered a bottle of Rioja. When the waiter brought the bottle, he did the whole, look at the bottle, nod approval at the waiter, swirl the wine in the glass, smell it, swish it around in his mouth, swallow it, and nod again for the waiter to pour our glasses – I kind of watched him and seeing him do all that made me smile so big. The wine was lovely, and we ordered lots of tapas and ate and talked and drank for what seemed like hours, but was really probably only and hour and a half or so. If I tell you the big thing he said to me over dinner, you’ll think we’re crazy, so I won’t (yet, probably), but that was definitely the best meal of my life.
Afterwards, we walked down to the waterfront. It was a perfect night: full moon, just the right temperature, breezy. We walked along the water, then stopped to watch the planes (or to kiss, but who’s keeping track, really?) and just talk some more. Finally, we headed back to the car, and just before we got there, we stopped to kiss, and the combination of my 4-inch heels on cobblestone, his big feet, the wine, and the sudden stop led to our feet getting tangled and his foot landed on mine and broke the toenail of my big toe pretty far down the nail bed. It hurt like crap, but we kissed anyway, and it was only after I got in the car that I realized I was bleeding. Yikes. He kept apologizing, but I told him not to worry because it’s going to be the funny part of the story of our otherwise perfect first date.
Saturday afternoon, I picked him up and we went to see Pineapple Express. It was the captioned movie last week, and I worried that he would think that was weird, but he says he doesn’t mind at all. The movie was so, so funny. I love Seth Rogen, and James Franco was as good as advertised. We laughed so much, though we don’t need a movie to do that. Then we went to Rustico for beer and pizza, though I had a burger. He had a double chocolate stout (which I didn’t hate), and I had a Hawaiian pale ale of some sort, which was pretty good. We talked about the inanity of the parents of three at a nearby table who’d brought a portable DVD player for the kids (all under 4) to watch while they ate dinner – why bring your kids out if you’re not interested in interacting with them? Get a baby-sitter, for crying out loud. Anyway, we talked about our families and discovered that Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday, and agreed that we don’t have to do Valentine’s Day.
Next, we drove to Gravelly Point, which is a park on the water near the airport. We sat and watched the planes take off, which put this song in my head, and held hands and talked – we can talk forever. Then we walked a ways down the path, quizzing each other on whether we’d leave each other for various outlandish infractions. The verdict: I have to stay with him if he just gets indicted for a felony, but I can leave him if he gets convicted. I can’t remember what he’s allowed to leave me for; prostitution, I think.
Then we came back to my place for chocolate milk (just one of many things that one of us has mentioned to which the other one has said, “I love ___,” eliciting a kiss from the first one – it’s eerie, really) for dessert, then some beer and Olympics watching.
Sunday, we had tentative plans to get a little bit out of town, but we were lazy lazy lazy in the morning, so I just cooked him breakfast – pancakes and bacon – and then dropped him off so he could do stuff around his house, and I did my own errands. Around 5, he picked me up and we went to the wine store and the grocery store, then to his place, where he cooked for me for the first time – a delicious chicken stir fry. He takes such good care of me. We sat on the balcony for a little while, drinking wine and enjoying the night, then came in to watch Mad Men. He indulges my furious girl crush on Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan – he says it means he can cheat on me with her even if she’s not on his List, because I couldn’t possibly blame him. I’m not sure he’s wrong. But when I turned the tables and said I can do the same with George Clooney then, because he LOVES George, he wasn’t so happy. I’d actually rather have Joan.
So there you go. That’s my idea of a perfect weekend. He did such a good job planning Friday and Saturday – Friday especially – and just being with him, doing the things we’d do anyway, but doing them together, is all I ever wanted.
But now I’ve got to plan a weekend for him. Good thing I have about a month til we have a free weekend all to ourselves again.
“I think they should invent a new word, a word that describes the moment before you kiss someone . . . It’s like the moment a bird decides it can fly.”
– Grace, on Once and Again (now that is a show that got canceled way before its time, if you ask me)
That’s what he kept asking me, as we sat across the table from each other for hours two weeks ago, after he told me he knew he needed to be with me. That’s what he said, my handsome boy with gorgeous blue eyes and sweet smile that makes me feel like a million bucks, as we confessed how long we’d had feelings for each other and discovered that we’d wanted to kiss each other from exactly the same moment. He looked at me like he couldn’t quite believe his luck, which was exactly the way I was looking at him, and so I knew just what he meant when he asked, “Who are you, and where did you come from?”
I can’t imagine anyone who’s a better fit for me than him, and I marvel at the way we found each other, week after week, a little at a time, until we just couldn’t deny it any longer. I realize how easily I could have missed him, and I am so thankful that we didn’t pass each other by. I finally know what people mean when they say, “You’ll just know when you’ve found the right one.” I can tell him anything, and I’m not scared I’m going to mess it up, and all of the things I always worried about in relationships are falling away, and we are in love like I didn’t think I could ever be.
People think I’m crazy to feel this way because, technically, it hasn’t been that long, but I don’t care because it’s actually been such a long time coming, and I’ve known that I love him for what seems like ages, and I just always knew it was somehow going to work itself out, as complicated as it was (and I assume that regular readers now know who I’m talking about). I understand their concern, and I keep it in the back of my mind, but all I can say is, I have never in my life been so sure of anything as I am that he and I were made for each other, and I am not going to question it.
I’m in love, you guys, with someone who loves me back. That is an amazing thing. I’m so lucky.
None pities him that is in the snare who, warned before, would not beware.
– Robert Herrick
I’ve been sitting here every day this week, staring at my site, wondering what there is to say. I feel empty, like there’s nothing to share. There are things I could tell you, of course, but even I’m tired of the ongoing saga of Pub Crawl Boy. I know now that it isn’t me, and he asked if I still want to talk to him – I do, but I sure wish he’d act like he still wants to talk to me.
I don’t think I’m cut out for dating. I’m not confident enough not to be hurt by every jackass who looks my way and says nice things. But what’s the alternative? I’m not ready to accept that I might have to live the rest of my life alone and that it would be ok, as someone recently suggested to me (not that she thinks I might really end up alone, only that I should learn to be ok with the possibility, just in case). The picture I have in my head of my life includes a husband and children and PTA meetings and softball games and summer vacations with my brother’s family and watching my kids and Aimee’s kids grow up as friends. And I feel in a hurry to get there, for a lot of different reasons.
When I lost my hearing, my life literally got put on hold for nearly three years while I tried to figure out what had happened and come to terms with it. If it hadn’t happened, I really feel like I’d already be where I want to be personally, and so it’s hard not to feel cheated a little bit, and it’s hard not to feel like I have to play catch-up. The other thing that happened when I lost my hearing is that I lost a lot of my sense of self and my confidence, which I’m only just now starting to get back, and that makes it harder now to put myself out there to try and get what I want. I feel stuck – too afraid on the one hand and too desperate on the other. Most days I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s amazing to me that I even bother to get out of bed sometimes.
Whatever. I suppose I’m just having a little pity party for myself while I wait for PCB to pop back up out of the woodwork and say the magic words to make me think THIS is really going to be the week. Again. I’m hopeless.
Disclaimer: I initially posted this Saturday afternoon. I took it down after continuing developments occurred Saturday night that show that I was hasty in my assessment – again – but I decided to put it back up because it’s still the way I was feeling when I wrote it, and I’m interested in people’s thoughts on the subject.
No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hates a man for being her friend.
– Alexander Pope
When you know there’s someone out there in the world who digs you, who thinks you’re smart and funny and cute, who wants to be with you, you feel different. You walk taller, smile more, have a little spring in your step. At least I do. It’s a kind of validation, whether you agree with the concept or not, that you’re desirable, and it makes you feel good, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
But what happens when the bottom falls out, when – for no discernible reason – he doesn’t call, and when you call him, he appears to blow you off? You know in your head that it can’t be you, because you haven’t done anything: you’re the same girl you were the night you met him, and the day he arranged to have drinks, and the day he had to cancel and seemed disappointed about it.
I don’t know about you, but when that happens to me, it’s a constant struggle to keep my head up. I feel sad, of course, and disappointed. But I also feel embarrassed to talk about what happened, like I was foolish to ever believe that he would want to be with me and everyone else knew it and didn’t say anything. I know that’s ridiculous, and I thought long and hard about whether embarrassed was really what I felt, and decided that it is.
I could still be wrong about him, I suppose. I could be overanalyzing his last email – terse, not so friendly as the others, very matter-of-fact – telling me he couldn’t meet for drinks Thursday because he was heading out of town for the weekend. But there was no, “Sorry I haven’t been in touch [even though I'm the one who said 'I hope next week will work'],” no, “Let’s try again next week” like he’s said before.
I assume, then, that I’m supposed to take the hint and understand that he’s done with me, but if that’s the case, I feel cheated. I feel like he owes me an explanation about what changed between last week and this week. I know I’m in the minority on this – more than one person has told me that, although it would be good manners for him to explain, he doesn’t “owe” me anything – and I’m certainly not going to send him an email asking why, but this makes me mad. I trusted the things he said to me, which isn’t easy for me, instead of listening to the little voice in the back of my head that said “Don’t get caught up in this.” And there you go.
You know what the sad thing is, though? This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened to me, and I never seem to learn how not to jump in head first, how not to get my hopes up, how to keep my expectations low. And I probably will not learn anything from this, either, quite frankly. But like my friend says, “It’s going to be wrong a lot, and it’s only going to be right once. Luckily, it only has to be right once.”
And if you don’t expect too much from me
you might not be let down
— Gin Blossoms, Hey Jealousy
Hope can kiss my ass.
More later.
I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
– Margaret Thatcher
Oh my god. Tuesday night I could hardly wait for today. Because today is the day Pub Crawl Boy (I know – it’s totally romantic, isn’t it?) and I were meant to have drinks after work. He IMed me Tuesday night and we chatted and he asked when I was free this week. We settled on tonight at 6, at a place near where I work that, he says, has amazing mojitos, which he loves (and coincidentally, so do I). He said he couldn’t stay long but that he really wanted to see me.
Then I spent two days furiously texting and emailing Karen discussing what to wear. I shopped last night for three effing hours and tried on 22 pairs of pants and NONE of them fit me quite right. I hate shopping. Malls make me crazy, but I did it because I didn’t want to wear my favorite dress (even though it looks smashing) and appear to be trying too hard. So I came home with a super-cute shirt from Banana Republic, but decided this morning that it was too low cut to wear to work, so I chose another outfit. The pants are really too big for me, but they were the best of a rapidly diminishing set of options in my closet. But by the time I got to work, though, they were stretched out from sitting on the train, and I didn’t feel confident anymore.
So I ditched work at 11 and walked 6 blocks in 95-degree weather to H&M, where I tried on 9 more pairs of pants and finally came up with a pair that were ok, and definitely better than the ones I had on, except that they were way too long. Luckily, though, I am so resourceful (and apparently careless with my employer’s time) that I stopped by CVS on the way back to work and picked up a sewing kit, and then locked myself in my office where I promptly cut off the cuffs of the pants did a quick whip stitch to get them to the right length. Have we not already established that I am a bit crazy? Yes? Ok, then.
So I was all set – I had brought make-up to touch up before leaving the office, and I was going to change just before I left for the bar. Around 3, I thought to check my gmail again, just in case, and there was the email I had feared I would get – he had to bail, he said, and he was sorry, but he hoped next week would work. My heart dropped. I didn’t know what to feel. Because he didn’t explain, my immediate reaction was, he’s having second thoughts. But then I reminded myself about the things he’s said so far, and I decided to trust the universe and see what happens. I emailed back: That’s disappointing; I was looking forward to seeing you. I hope everything’s ok. Let’s talk soon about next week. Almost immediately, he replied: Yeah, it sucks. I just have to finish this report for work today. Believe me, I’d definitely rather be drinking mojitos with you at 6 today.
So there you go. I have to wait til next week to see him, but he still wants to see me, and that’s what’s important, right? Patience, as I’ve told you, is really not my strong suit. And as much of an optimist as I am generally, I often have a hard time believing that new people I meet who act friendly really do like me, so my first instinct was to assume that he had changed his mind about me. I’m trying to remember that I know very little about what his life is like, and how busy his job is, and the only thing I can do is trust him and hope for the best.
And in a way, maybe it’s better – I ordered 7 pairs of pants online today, and they’ll get here before I see him again – maybe the perfect pair will be among them!
Men live by forgetting; women live on memories.
– T.S. Eliot
Is it really possible that I was wrong again? Maybe it’s too soon to say, but patience is not my strong suit. More than one person has told me that men don’t have the same concept of time as women when it comes to things like this (and one less than helpful person said, “Was he drunk? Maybe he forgot.”), and it isn’t as if I haven’t heard from him at all – I just haven’t heard the words I want to hear yet.
All this “play it cool,” “good things come to those who wait,” “don’t contact him” crap really makes me mad because it feels like a bullshit game, and it’s one I’m not interested in playing. I don’t understand why, if I want to see him, I’m not “allowed” to just tell him so. It’s not like I’m stalking him or hounding him relentlessly – I’m sending him a freaking text message, which he is free to ignore. Relationship-wise, I’ve never gotten anything I didn’t go after myself; these things don’t just fall in my lap. I’m the first to admit that I’ve been out of the dating game for a VERY long time, but it just doesn’t make any sense to me.
And what’s happening is, I’m beginning to doubt – him, the things he said, myself. I remember the night we had, and I think, “He would never say those things and act that way if he didn’t mean it.” Sometimes it helps, but sometimes I think, “What I mean is, I would never say those things and act that way if I didn’t mean it, so I really hope I can trust that he’s that way too.”
I don’t know what I hope to get out of writing this, but I’m going crazy leaving it all in my head. Writing it makes me see that it’s probably a little obsessive, but I don’t apologize for that. Things like this – meeting someone interesting who appears to be interested in me and says he wants to see me again – don’t happen to me, and I suppose I’m a little on edge trying to figure out what to do next. Even if what to do next is nothing. Christ, it’s a wonder to me people ever make it past this stage of a “relationship.”
I guess what I’m hoping for from you guys is just some perspective on the whole “call or don’t call” front.
I loved her: for her loyalty, for her sweet good humor, for the way she held her hair off her neck when she was hot; for the streak of sadness in her and for her belief that one true love could wipe it clean.
– from The Dive From Clausen’s Pier, by Ann Packer
It’s a funny thing, hope. One hopeful thing – a boy telling you, “I’d like to see you again” – can do so much to move you away from the hopelessness that you’d been feeling and which you thought was going to be endless.
Hope is what gets you out of the house on a Saturday night when you were planning just to stay home and mourn a friendship that might never be the same. Hope is what says, come on, you can’t just sit here moping; you never know what’s waiting out there for you. Hope is what leads you to put on what you feel most confident in, and lets you understand what he tells you with his eyes. Hope makes you feel like you can be anyone you want to be, because he doesn’t know you, but makes you realize that just being you should be enough. Hope helps you be strong enough not to shy away.
The thing that hope does, too, is help you see that this is not all there is for you. This is not all there is, one boy who broke your heart by accident. There is more, someone who will hold your hand while you walk down the street and guide you through a crowded bar with a hand on your back and watch you as you disappear down the escalator after a night of talking and kissing and getting to know each other.
But it’s a hard thing, too, hope, because you have to trust it. You have to trust that, if he said he wants to see you again and asked you if that would be ok, if he took your number and gave you his, if he kissed you first, if he told you that you’re beautiful, that he meant those things. And you want to believe it, because that’s who you are and what you do, but you’re not sure, because he still hasn’t called. And you tell yourself to be patient, but it’s difficult, because it feels like a game, this waiting, and you don’t understand why, if he wants to see you, he wouldn’t just tell you so.
But even if he never calls, you know that you will be ok, because hope has shown you that there is more than this for you. And there is no rule that says you can’t call him.
I just want him to kiss me, and then kiss me again, and then everything will become very clear to both of us. Aha! he will say. I forgot! I do love you!
– from Until the Real Thing Comes Along, by Elizabeth Berg
Today I did the one thing I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do. I told my Might Have Been boy that I can’t be friends with him right now. Since the talk last week, we’ve IMed at work almost constantly – it’s amazing that we get any work done, actually – and we rode the train together Monday like normal. I was doing ok, mostly. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but there was something in the back of my mind that wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, really, until last night.
He came in early yesterday, which is unusual for him, so we got to ride the train home together again. We were standing on the platform, talking as usual, and then he pulled out his phone and started texting her, joking that for once he’s the one bugging her about when she’s going to be home (yes, they live together now – did I somehow forget to mention that?). I immediately disengaged – I looked away, turned my head, and just generally couldn’t even fake it. He asked if I was ok, and I lied and said yes. We attempted to make more small talk, but by the end of the ride, we were totally silent and I was near tears. He asked if I was ok, and this time I said no. He asked if I needed to talk, and I said, “It’s not going to change anything.” He nodded, rubbed my arm, and just sadly said ok.
I cried all night when I got home yesterday, because what I realized is this: where before I felt like the best version of myself when I was with him, now I feel like the version of myself that is trying to do whatever I can to make him choose me. I’m doubting myself where I never did before – am I smart enough, do I look cute enough today, am I being agreeable enough to make him change his mind. And that kills me. I know his staying with her isn’t about me, but some part of me thinks there’s something in ME that’s lacking, and that if I could just figure out the right thing to say or do, everything would fall into place.
So I wrote him a letter. That’s what I do – I’m so much better in writing than I am in speaking, especially when my emotions are so close to the surface like they have been this past week. There’s no way I could say this stuff to him without completely breaking down. Because the truth is, not talking to him, not spending time with him, is not what I want at all. It’s a thing that doesn’t even make sense in my head – I’ve talked to him nearly every day for 9 months, and the longest we’ve ever gone without talking is two days. I can’t begin to understand how not to be friends with him and the thought of it breaks my heart. But, after talking to two people who know me well and who I trust very much, and who have gone through similar things, I’ve come to understand that this is the way it has to be.
We didn’t talk all day at work today until I IMed to tell him I had the letter just before I left – an hour early because I just can’t keep it together (though I will say that you’d be surprised at the number of tasks you can complete with tears in your eyes, as long as your office door is closed). I went down to his office on my way out – he didn’t look as bad as I did, but he didn’t look great, either. I handed him the envelope and he asked me if he should hold it for a few days in case I change my mind. With my voice breaking, I said, “I’ve already changed my mind 100 times.” And that’s true. All day I kept going back and forth, and right before I told him I had it – the point of no return – I thought to myself, if you feel this bad about it, why not wait? But there are things in the letter that he needs to know, and I know that it’s not going to get better if I wait, it’s just going to get worse.
I knew I was in big trouble last night when I was writing the letter and in my head I accidentally called him J, because I literally spent YEARS trying to say or do just the right thing that would make J realize how much I loved him and that we were perfect for each other. And I knew that I needed to give him the letter sooner rather than later, because at this point in my life, I just don’t have that kind of time to waste.
But I’m miserable. I don’t have any idea what life without him in it as my friend is going to be like. It will probably be less funny and have fewer smiles for a while. And apparently I’m on the heartache diet these days – I can’t really eat, which is unusual for me. My plan is not to actively avoid him (that’s easy enough as it is – the nature of our jobs and the set up of our offices makes it so that I can go days without seeing him), but just to not seek him out. I don’t know how long I’m going to last, honestly. He’s the one I always want to tell everything to – how am I supposed to just let that go?
I rarely do the right thing for myself when it comes to men – I have a long track record of figuring out what they want and trying to mold myself to fit that image. That’s no good, though, because if you win him that way, you’ve lost yourself. If I changed, and he left her to be with me, that wouldn’t be honest, and it would never last. And it’s not fair to ask him not to talk about her – if we’re friends, those are the things friends talk about – but I just can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt me to hear it. So walking away, that’s the only option, right?
Right?
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