Sponsor me in the 2005 MS Walk! Why? Read here.
Geez, I hate it when real life interferes with my journal keeping! I started out to write an entry several times yesterday. Just never quite made it there. Funny, though, more people read my pages yesterday than have in a long time. I guess I have Kathy to thank for that!
Anyway�
I am ridiculously, overwhelmingly tired this week. I slept through my alarm on Tuesday morning for an hour and seven minutes. It went off at 6:30�I woke up at 7:37. Not quite sure why that happened, but there it is. And I keep sneezing. These are not good things.
No time to be sick right now. It�s the Holiday Season. I have Things To Do. This Friday night, my family and Carla�s family are getting together for our yearly Christmas celebration, and I REFUSE to be sick for that! It�s too important! And it�s something that I look forward to all year. Nope�can�t be sick then. Saturday, Mom and I are headed to Chatham with another friend to do some shopping, also a tradition for us. Next weekend is our apartment party. I�m mailing the invitations today (invitations which I, of course, made by hand, because I�m insane like that!). Our department party is the 14th. The pottery studio that the Boyfriend has been working through has their open house and sale on the 7th. I know there are other things happening, too, that I can�t remember right now. They�ll come back to me. Perhaps it�s self-preservation, keeping me from remembering too many things at once.
We just drew names for our administrative support gift grab. I drew twice. The first name I got was of someone I�ve only met twice. Ann told me to pick again. Is that wrong?
I�m listening to Matthew Sweet at my desk today. After all this time, Girlfriend is still one of my favorite albums. There�s not one song on it that I don�t like, although I, of course, have my favorites.
It�s funny how music can become so rooted in a specific part of your life, though. One of the songs, �I Thought I Knew You,� reminds me so much of one particular Artboy period, I still can�t listen to it and not feel a little residual sadness. The first time I truly listened closely to the words was in the aftermath of the Amanda Incident, and they so closely matched my state of mind, it was eerie. Like Matthew Sweet had written it for me. Ever the self-flagellator, I listened to it over and over and over, until the words were so far burned into my brain that I really started to believe it was MY song.
It�s been almost four years, but the memory is still so clear of sitting on the bus, traveling toward home, passing the Artboy�s street and physically restraining myself from getting off, Matthew Sweet�s voice in my head, �I thought I knew you, but I wasn�t even close. I had my heart set on little more than a ghost. And I thought I�d show you there was no way we could lose. I thought I�d force you to realize and to choose. And it took me years to figure out that there was nothing I could show to you, years to figure out that you were never really going to choose, and how can I describe the way I slowly lost my love for you, and all of the time I thought I knew you��
So very much pain. Unnecessary pain. How could two people who really did love each other cause hurt each other so much, for so long? It doesn�t make sense in hindsight.
I talked to the Artboy the other day. Thanksgiving was making him reflective and philosophical. I had invited him to join us for our Friend Thanksgiving, but he declined.
Again, it brought me back to a different time, Thanksgiving 1997, to be exact.
That Halloween, we�d almost broken up. Again. Amanda had contacted him. Again. We spent a couple very wavery weeks where every day I was certain it would be over, but we�d been actually talking about it, and although I was hesitant, I was hopeful.
One Friday night after work, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, we went to Jordan�s Furniture in Avon to buy a �big girl� bed for my room. The Artboy, being 6�3�, didn�t fit very well into my twin This End Up bed with the headboard and the footboard. Consequently, in an attempt to improve our situation, I decided to buy a bed he�d be able to sleep comfortably in, thereby encouraging him to stay there more often.
The first part of the trip went well enough. I picked out a mattress, paid for it and signed the slip. We planned to load it into the Artboy�s truck and bring it home that night, so the salesclerk called down to the warehouse and told us to drive around to the pickup window in 45 minutes. That�s where things started to go downhill.
We wandered through the store, looking at furniture, killing time. The Artboy railed on about consumerism and people buying things they didn�t need and how he was going to be true to his art his whole life and consequently wouldn�t probably ever be able to buy anything in the store anyway, not that it mattered since most of it was mass-produced junk that he�d never want in his house in the first place.
Quite a joy to shop with, let me tell you. We passed other shoppers, people around our age, couples, looking to furnish their homes, enjoying their time together in the store. At one point, he pointed out something he actually liked, and went to look for a price on it. My edges ruffled, I snapped, �what difference does it make how much it is? You�ve already pointed out that you�ll never be able to afford any of it anyway!� He snapped back, �What, so I should be like those assholes over there instead?� gesturing to a couple sitting happily on a couch a few feet away.
I cracked. I sat down in the nearest chair and cried. For about ten minutes, with the Artboy standing helplessly at my side. Finally, he handed me a tissue from a box conveniently placed on a nearby side table. Snuffling, I stood and we walked silently out to the truck.
Outside, he made a halfhearted attempt at apologizing, but I silenced him. We drove around to the pickup window and watched the workmen load my new bed into the back, then drove home in equal silence.
The Artboy and I, with Steve�s help, brought the bed in and set it up. Steve took the first opportunity to back out of an obviously tense moment, leaving us alone, sitting on the edge of the bare mattress.
Finally, I started to speak. I told the Artboy about the night that Bill and I broke up, the night he tried to ask me to marry him. He knew that I felt an obligation to him, and that if he managed to ask me before I broke up with him, I would stay, not because I wanted to be there, but because I felt like I had to.
I looked the Artboy in the eye, took both his hands in mine, and said, �I don�t want you to be with me because you feel obligated to be here. I want you to be with me because you�d rather be here than anywhere else in the world. And if that isn�t true, I�d rather that you just leave.�
He sat for a minute, looking at me, at his hands, at the bed, at the floor, then at me again. Finally, wordlessly, he stood and walked out of my room, out of my house, out of my life.
I lay on that unmade bed all night, listening for the sound of the truck coming back. It didn�t happen.
Like I said, so much pain.
The next weekend, we had the first Apartment Thanksgiving. All the Artboy�s roommates were there. I thought�hoped�all night that he�d show. He didn�t. I drank too much wine and ended up in tears in my bedroom, leaving Steve and Erica to entertain our guests.
Very different from how I spent that day this year.
---------------------------------------------
Something to say about this entry?
Add your comments here (0 people have spoken already)
< Jennifer apologizes! | Early morning dentist and more furniture reflections >
