I stopped posting here a while ago. I felt like I was wallowing in it. I knew keeping a journal is supposed to be healthy, but I felt like I was using it as a tool for feeding my depressive side, for letting failed expectations run wild in my imagination to the point where they were feeling like the dominant part of my life. Now I'm not sure how to proceed. Part of Marcel Parcells likes scrutinizing these disappointing aspects, zooming in on them and getting closer to how they change my motivations, to why I feel this way or that way. Another part - and perhaps this is the part that believes he can he break horses and canter off into the night, prefers a more detached cynicism, an asshole, go-fuck-yourself, I may care but probably not really, arms length sort of attitude. So. . .where to go with this?
I recently drove across the country. I spent part of the trip mocking southerners, relaxing in the driver's seat, singing along to the worst possible music, and seeing how hot I could make the interior of my car. I spent another part, a large one, thinking a lot about the road trips I used to take with Janet, the most significant of ex-girlfriends, who is now taking trips with a man, who is to my impression, a monomaniacal gearhead athlete of the most boring kind. I called Janet from a lonely campspot in some west Oklahoma grassland, because I had been thinking so much about her I needed to try for contact. This was the first time we have talked in months. It was fun (comfortable), but disappointing, since she was doing that relationship thing where you take on some of the traits of your partner. She talked about scales that measured body fat, hiking twenty miles a day, weighing out your food to the gram, rationing, bear canisters, trekking poles, travel times. I wanted to interrupt the whole time and ask, "When did you play? Did you have any fun? Did you climb some trees, or skip rocks, or bet on which squirrel would lick your peanut butter covered finger?" Instead I just let it go, because for the most part, I ended the relationship, and I hurt her, so if she can be happy with someone I would hate. . .well, good for her.
It's just sad to see someone change for someone else.
6 comments:
I think you should go where ever you want to go... even though I kinda like reading it, you shouldn't torture yourself for anyone's benefit but your own.
And, I know exactly how that conversation with an ex goes, and that lots of people change for their partners... Do you think she changed for you? Or is this possibly the real her and she pretended to be cooler when you were together?
Oh, I like writing it. I just have to remember to have some fun with it. Not take myself too seriously.
As to whether she changed for me or if it's the real her. It's hard to tell from where I sit. I think there's some alteration that goes on in any long relationship, a little give and take of character, preference, inside jokes. So, I guess I like to think she wasn't pretending with me. But also don't feel like she should be completely happy where she is. . .and that may just be jealousy.
Well, I'm not exactly one to live in a glass house and advise anyone else not to take themselves seriously.
I guess all I can say (as someone else's Janet) is that when someone devastates you, up-ends your life, by ending a really long term relationship, you want desperately to change because otherwise you're in some way just half of what you used to be.
And maybe the guy is a tool and she's trying to make herself over to fit him, because we all do that at some point- but maybe you can take some solace in the fact that those kinds of relationships always end (poorly).
Well, I'm not the smartest tool in the shed, but I enjoy your mixed metaphor.
On your second paragraph, that just makes me feel guilty. But in this case it had to happen. In your case, hope your changing for the better.
On your third, there's a little solace. But I'd rather he wasn't a tool and that that could be that.
p.s. I appreciate the input, A.L.
And, both your Wonkette material and your own blog are different kinds of worthwhile.
Thanks, that's sweet of you to say...
I don't think it's anything to feel guilty over. There aren't any cool people in the world who would rather someone stayed together with them to spare their feelings if there wasn't any reciprocation or happy future in it. Plus, you obviously felt the loss of the relationship keenly, too.
As for me, I'm a work in progress. I'm still trying to gather up the bits of me that started blowing away when the relationship started going badly.
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