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So I went to bed feeling fine last night, but woke up at 5:30 this morning, so nauseous I didn�t dare move. I stayed in bed for about two and a half more hours, at which point I forced myself to get up and shower, regardless of the consequences. I don�t have enough time in my bank to take a sick day today. Ann told me I look terrible. I probably do. Damn cold and flu season, damn wedding guests who kissed me and hugged me and passed on all their germs�
I have many things to do today, but am not feeling drawn toward any of them. Mostly, I just want to curl up in a little ball and go back to sleep. But I can�t, so I should just move on.
It�s Tuesday again, which means another night of Buffy. I�ve got to admit that I�m just as happy with the small Buffy group of Chris, Damon and me, maybe even more so than the big productions we�d been having. It means a quiet Buffy viewing audience and an early night, both of which are good things. Readjusting. It�s all good.
The Artboy called me at work today. I�d emailed him the other day, just to check in, since I hadn�t heard from him since our lunch, and I was supposed to get some BARCC information to him. He quit his job at JP Licks and went back to work for his dad as a mechanic in the garage his family owns a few weeks ago. He worked for his dad when I first met him. Funny how some things go full circle.
He answered my email yesterday with the news that the gallery�s computer had been stolen, so he�s been email-less for a couple weeks, but he was glad to hear from me. He said that things were going well with the band and with the gallery and with school, but were a little sparse in the romance department.
It�s odd to have conversations with your ex about his love life.
Anyway�
He called me today on his way from school back to the gallery. We talked for about 15 minutes while he drove and I alphabetized my filing. My voice is still questionable�I was hoarse from the wedding and am slowly losing it, like I do every year, as my body attempts to fight off whatever sickness is invading. He laughed at my wavering tone and said, �Hey, I recognize that voice! Don�t worry, though, Jennifer�I always thought it was sexy.�
Our conversation today wasn�t in-depth. It was pretty much a this-is-what�s-happened-in-my-life-since-the-last-time-we-spoke thing. I hung up feeling both happy and sad. And then a little�uneasy isn�t the right word. I don�t feel uneasy. I just feel�unsettled.
The Artboy and I have such a long history together. And like I told Diana this weekend, I will always love him, will never get back that piece of me that he holds on to. I invested too much of myself in our relationship to expect that I�d ever get all of me back, and I�m okay with that. There are little pieces of me floating around with several different men, all of whom were�and still are, in their own ways�very important in my life. That�s the result of loving someone, and I�d rather take that chance than never love at all.
But he holds a bigger piece than anyone else, other than the Boyfriend, who has the rest of my heart.
I hesitate to type any of this out, because I�m afraid of the repercussions of putting it out there, of the huge chance for someone to read this and misunderstand what I�m trying to say, of the feedback I could get. But I also remind myself that this is my diary, and my space to work through the things in my head, and that I promised myself when I started writing in it that I would stick with the truth, regardless of what it looked like out there for anyone to read.
So let me start by saying that being in touch with the Artboy has NOT changed my mind about wanting to marry the Boyfriend. My relationship with the Boyfriend has become a foundation for my life�for our life together�that I don�t want to disrupt. I can�t imagine my life without him. I try to work my days so that he�s the last person I talk to before I fall asleep to approximate having him there with me every night. I�m excited about the prospect of marrying him, but I�m more excited about the prospect of being married to him. I am amazed at how well he takes my cranky moods in stride, and how impressively he deals with all of my family, some of whom I think like him better than they like me. I am happy�and content�with the way my life is now, and the direction in which it�s heading.
So why, knowing all of that is true, am I unsettled at the end of my conversation with the Artboy?
The Artboy will always be that relationship I�ll never feel settled about. He�ll always be the man I didn�t quite love the right way. He was my learning process, my trial-and-error, my first attempt at grown-up love. He will always be the father of the child I didn�t have, the man who offered me the ring that I refused (painfully, but definitely), the one I wanted to keep but could never quite find the way to make it work.
I can�t separate the Artboy now from the Artboy then, not completely. And as much as I want him to be happy and move on, there�s a piece of me that wants him to still want me, at least a little bit. That�s the part that enjoys his telling me he thinks my voice sounds sexy, the part that is happy to see the gallery invitation in the mail, the part that thought about kissing him goodbye the day I told him I was getting married.
I would never, ever act on any of that, for two incredibly good reasons. The first is the man I love actively, the one I�m going to marry, the one who overcame the horrible hurt I brought down on him when I decided I needed to settle things with the Artboy instead of being with him, the one whose voice I fall asleep with in my head. He�s the one I couldn�t live without, the one who haunted me that whole year, who made me extricate myself from the Artboy and walk away for good. He�s the one it hurt too much to lose.
The second reason, of course, being the Artboy himself. Even IF there were no Boyfriend in my life, if it were just the Artboy and me, and he said to me, �Jennifer, I can�t live without you,� (which, by the way, he�s said to me before, once with the desired Jennifer-leaves-the-Boyfriend-to-be-with-him effect, and once with no effect at all other than making me have a killer, vomit-producing migraine) I know it wouldn�t work. You can love someone all you want, but that doesn�t mean you go well together.
So I�m left with this weird�thing. I don�t even know what to call it. And it isn�t that I walk around thinking about it all the time, or that I�m obsessing about the Artboy. But when he calls me at work like he did today, it leaves me with a bittersweet feeling.
I want everything.
I want to be able to marry the Boyfriend and have a happy life with him, while keeping the Artboy in my life. And the world wants to tell me that�s not possible, he can�t be my friend, he has an underlying agenda, he�s going to end up coming between the Boyfriend and me.
Am I crazy to want that? I don�t want him. Not the way I used to want him. But I enjoy his company. The things I liked about him all along are still true. They just don�t have the icky, Artboy-is-a-bad-boyfriend things attached.
I can�t decipher if the voice that tells me this is a bad idea is my gut, or the collective voice of my mom and the rest of my family ringing in my ear.
This is totally NOT what I came in here to write about today at all. Funny how that happens.
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