The Dark Side of A Projected Gemini Influence

It's a work day!  And I'm sitting on the porch, sun glaring off the screen, making it multi-functional.  I can see how my hair looks against it.  I took the day off since I knew I would be home late last night from my wonderful event in the city.  

I'm wondering if there was some sort of Gemini something in the astrological dice yesterday.  A duality.  I had what was a great time and one of the absolute worst times lately.  

The book I had ordered from the Strand had not yet arrived and the author event was upon me! So I called them and come to find out, they just hand me the book when I get there.  Whoo hoo!  I didn't know this well enough in advance so I had emailed Flip.  I remembered that I saw one of my books there, Door Wide Open by Joyce Johnson, still on a shelf.  I emailed him a simple email to ask if it was there and if he would please put it in his mailbox for me to pick up.  Did I use the word simple?  Yes, for me it was.  He couldn't answer simply.  He had to say that I had a few books there still and would I need a hazmat bag so that I don't catch his cooties.  We are 42, folks. Both of us.  Just saying.

I replied without any notice to the cooties.  Asked if he could put them in a bag and put them at the end of the driveway and that I had 2 small books of his that I could put in the mailbox or in the spot where he leaves my books.  He couldn't just give me a nice answer.  Instead he emailed with the same basic speech he's been sending me for over a month I think.  He's been going off every single day, whether I address it or not.  I've told him that I'm not doing this anymore.  What is he gaining by emailing me this stuff day after day?  It's more that he is forcing his perspective on me constantly, as if one day I'll say, "Huh.  You were right.  I do see it that way now.  I so DID 'fuck and chuck' you, just as you said I did!  Amazing!  Gee, I'm sorry."  

The back-story on that being that yes we had a physical reunion about a month ago, maybe longer, at my suggestion.  I've written about it.  His ex who appears only when I'm gone calling while I was on the phone with him and he trying to brush it under the rug, then telling me when I called him on it that they call each other in hard times.  Meanwhile, during my relationship with him, had I discussed our relationship with my exes, he would have flipped out and figured out a way to make me feel like I'd done wrong.  Three years of conditioning by him and he rewrites every rule he's inflicted on me.  If I were to rewrite it, I'd be effed.  If he does it, I'm still effed.  So whatever. 

So instead of doing this nice and easy, I receive emails that I am a pig.  That I don't deserve respect.  Are you tired of this? Do you think you've heard this before if you normally follow this blog?  Well you have.  Pretty much all the time.  Because he keeps going.  The batteries do not die with this one.

I'll be honest...I'm not with anyone.  I don't have a boyfriend, I'm not priming anyone to be my boyfriend and I'm not speaking with any dudes who could turn into one.  I don't even feel that I'd be ready to inflict myself on another person.  I need a little time to be normal again.  I had emailed him numerous times asking him where my books would be.  I didn't tell him that I had an event, I just figured I could ask for my things and since he isn't put out by driving them anywhere, he could handle the task.  Oh Gods of Assumption, why do I pray to thee?  He sent back all of my emails at this point writing simply 'Unread'.  So I put in the subject line, "books, end of driveway please".  I know even if he isn't opening them, he can't miss that.

I showed up...no books at the end of the driveway.  Sigh.  Drive down the long driveway and then I start beeping the horn. Eventually I get out to knock.  I can hear him before I can see him and hear the word 'obnoxious'.  Then he opens the door, his mouth already going, him telling me something like, "You look good.  Too bad....blah blah blah blah" (something along the lines of an insult) and I don't hear the rest.  I'm busy tossing his two neatly wrapped up books into his chest.  He is still going on.  It goes ugly.  FFFFFFuuuuuuugly.  And this time I am not proud that I've even stooped to looking the slightest bit annoyed.  I certainly acted it.  And it wasn't right. I was so fed up from all the accusatory emails, the name calling, the lack of respect and while I am still paying for his health insurance.  I am fed up for paying off his jeep, for paying for his trip to the wedding this summer, for running to his side if he needed me, while I was ignored much of the time.  Fed up for the years of repression, wild assumptions and mean things he has said to my daughter.  Fed up for every good intention being turned into a violation  or expectation.  I spit at him.  I did.  And I immediately hated myself for it.  Ugh. Why why why why. Why did I stoop to this?  I've been doing so good at not reacting to his crap.  He told me to get out and somehow all my books ended up on the ground.  I picked them up as he went inside. Somewhere in this he called me a whore.  Why, I am not sure.  Don't twelve year old boys do that when they aren't sure what it means, just that it's insulting?  Don't guys do that when you won't give them any?   Then I looked up to see him coming toward me and quickly put The Witching Hour out in front of me.  He came out to spit in my face.  But Anne Rice saved me with her big storybook.  He stormed back inside, leaving his dog bewildered and stuck outside alone.  I shouted twice that his dog was outside.  He didn't come out.  I left.  I saw him in my rear view mirror finally go out and get his dog.

I fumed all the way to my next stop.  I wished I had just chuckled his crap off.  But as I thought of how he needed to control the situation and make me go to his door for my books instead of having no contact as I'd asked for (it's easier and it sure would have avoided all of this).  I was mad at his need for control.  And my reaction to having to deal with it.  

I stopped at Starbucks on the way to my train and sat for a moment, composing.  I knew the right thing would be an apology - only for my behavior...no matter what HE did or said, I can only take care of things on my side of the fence.  By the Grace of God (because even God seems to have a limit as to how much energy can be used for this) I got his voicemail.  I spoke evenly, apologizing for my behavior but also saying why couldn't he have just put the things outside instead of needing to be controlling?  And that his mouth was going before he even opened the door.  And...that I don't even want to speak to him again.

I got a tall bold coffee with room, picked out some pomegranate vanilla cashews and a croissant and headed for the train. The rest of that story will be a different post.  I don't want to taint my trip with this nonsense.

He called my cell phone alone over 25 times.  He was calling it from 3pm until at least midnight. He figured out how to text from the computer and started texting me saying that I had major cleavage showing and making assumptions that I was seeing someone, even though I told him just yesterday morning that I wasn't.  Not that it was any of his business.  But he's the guy who will smear you all over creation and people will believe him.  His own therapist is duped in my opinion.  

Now somehow, he knew I wasn't home.  Nah, it's not that easy - I don't answer my phone or email him back when I AM home much of the time.  Something else was going on.  My hunch was that he was checking my driveway.  You have to go into my driveway to check it.  You can't necessarily see if I'm home by passing by.  He sounded so sure in his texts that he knew I wasn't home...that my daughter wasn't home on a school night.  He accused me of going out on a mother daughter date...of taking my daughter with me so I could go screw some guy (his words).  He claimed to have called the police on me and said that I could be arrested but that he chose not to press charges.  At one am, he attached a message to a statement about the insurance, saying not to cancel him just yet - he wanted to be tested for STDs now. The message attached to it saying that he could still have me arrested if he chose.  So he put an insurance statement in a sandwich with a possible arrest.  I have my own reasons for believing he didn't call the police and I won't divulge that here.  But it would be awfully surprising for him to want to be in touch with police.

STDs???  Can you get them from a toilet seat? The last person that I was with was him.  And unless he's taking home the trash, then he shouldn't have any worries.  He's just being insulting.

At one a.m., I heard a car pull into the driveway.  I had all my lights off thankfully, but for the Golden Girls.  Dorothy would kick ass, even dead I know she would.  I saw him view my car, turn around and leave.  He was stalking me, just as I knew he was.  Now how could he in the right frame of mind be doing this?  Over 25 cell phone calls to me?  How many went to my home number?  He called my mother three times while I was out.  She refuses to answer the phone for him.  We aren't even together and he is calling my mother late at night to harass her?

I emailed him right away and told him that if he ever stalks me again I will have him arrested.  

You have to realize, he has to blow into a breathalyzer to start his car.  His license is restricted.  I can probably have him arrested for violating his license privileges.  As well as stalking once I show phone records.  

This was someone that I cared about very much for so long.  Someone who is steadily declining.  I am trying desperately to get away from even speaking to him because we were not healthy together and something about him is provocative.  He provokes, goes on and on...accuses and takes out ads in the Superbowl with his fantastical assumptions.  I certainly don't hate him.  I need to get my own self healthy and not do it under the pressure of a split brain where one side is trying to reflect and heal while the other is shutting off ringers and deleting emails or defending my character.  The whole thing is really sad, embarrassing and at the same time very human.  I am hesitant to be this candid with my dirt but no one's life is perfect.  And this is my journey.  It's going uphill to steady from here.

Victoria's Secret Needs to Rock the Holster

A rare, but enjoyable daytime post. Me and the early bird buffet of desperate mosquitoes out here on the porch.  I really should text my landlord and demand a net around the porch for my personal enjoyment.  

I currently sit here all sexied out with EKG paraphernalia stuck to my chest, stomach and for that final walk away sway, a holster on my hip.  Filled with a recorder to capture my pitter pats.  Ok first, let me think about a bad fight with Flip.  Ahhh!  How about now a good moment with El in Central Park.  How about now the Exorcist (God I hate that movie with everything that ever came in contact with me).  Now ... a puppy.  That belongs to someone else.  Those things are too much work for me.  Finishing off the thought coaster with a Brad Pitt punctuation.  There we go.  Wonder how that recording will come out...

I'm a little shocked though.  They had a DUDE do the heart ultrasound....which meant, bra off and smoke still coming off the how do you do's and the hands are on my chest.  Shocked that they allow a guy to be in the room alone with a female patient...most places don't that I know of. Now that I think of it...maybe he wasn't even a doctor.  But guess what - good news - I remembered to wear underwear to the appointment.  Yes, it has happened that I've forgotten and had to fashion some out of an extra paper gown.

Next phase was the progressive walk uphill on a treadmill.  Realize though that no coffee had crossed these lips before these tests.  No caffeine allowed until they are done.  So the treadmill was sorta fun except my usual rule of Not even Running for a Train.  I did really well actually and was told that most people my age couldn't accomplish what I did.  That's pretty sad considering that I'm only 42.  I at first mistakenly thought they meant any one who took the test and pit myself against those pathetic, slow seventy year olds.  (Kidding, golden folks...kidding!).  So I had to make a joke about it and come to find out, they meant OTHER 40 something year olds.  

I didn't go as far as I could have though.  Believe it or not, anxiety had me worried that I'd pass out from no food, water or coffee, flying off the treadmill, against the wall with my mouth open and teeth scraping along the still running foot belt on the machine.  Ew.  So even though the rest of me felt fine, my mind won out and I let them talk me into a little faster, a little steeper.  And then I got the post run giggles. 

Shuffled back to the waiting room, I was implored to enjoy the Kerug cup coffee that was there.  I went through the motions.  But then the Does Not Need Refrigeration creamer had a stiff layer of something when I peeled back the paper top.  I'll just wait until I pass Starbucks on the way home.  Sitting back down in my chair I pulled out my copy of Shamhbala Sun and proceeded to look at pictures on the first few pages.  Usually those are reserved for pimping out the newest Buddhist titles.  Then the letter from the editor.  Then.....finally, a room full of old ladies waiting for their hubbies and being coffee-less dropped it's curse on me.  Head back, mouth possibly open and clutching my Shambhala Sun against my chest, I got the best sleep in eight minutes than I'd gotten all night.

So now I'm fitted with this awesome holster.  I will do my show today in it (of course no one can see it - damn).  We are speaking with Kaleah today - a pro on narcissism.  I had to have her on...listening to her radio show really opened my eyes to what was up in my life with Flip.  Rescued me from the crazy thinking web that I kept tangling myself up in (with Flip standing by telling me often how I owed him an apology).  

Today is El's birthday.  In honor, I bought the newest cake pop offering from Starbucks today.  I know that I said I was broke.  But they are $1.50 each.  It's a Salted Caramel Pop!!!!   So cheers, El.  

I've been outta booze for awhile now and won't be having any more until Friday.  I do have beer in the fridge but I shouldn't have to drink beer that causes me to make a face.  Not enough proof in it for me to deal with it.  So that makes me not an alcoholic right?  If I can ignore any booze that isn't my top choice?  This Friday though...LOOK OUT!  A delivery van will be here with a couple of bottles of white, some Leffe blonde, Erdinger and possibly a small wee bottle of Makers for the weekend.  Yep, have my list all planned out.  That's about a $50 list.  Not too bad.   I do enjoy the broke aspect for the fasting though.  It's like a cleanse.  

More emails from Flip today.  I dont know why they still happen.  He says I have things at his house.  I say drop them off.  When I'm not home.  I would like my mail too and want to change my address but can't just yet as a favor to him.  I'd like for him to bring me the mail and stick it in my mailbox.  He claims that he can't do that but I know if I left a lottery ticket in the mailbox, he'd be over for it.  

I feel bad about things.  Of course I love him.  I love sour cream too.  But it wrecks me within hours and screams out of the pores of my face.  Perhaps things would be a slower death if he hadn't tried to slip that phone call past me with the Saint.  Perhaps if he hadn't sounded so flustered by her mere presence on the other line.  Or perhaps if she didn't magically appear every single time we aren't together.  I am not blaming her.  I'm saying that he employs a set of rules for me and has a severe grading system when he believes that I've dinged one.  When he does something that he would lay into me about until I want to burn off my own eyebrows, he may as well hire a campaign crew to help out his cause.

The child is sitting here writing down facts for a 60 second presentation that she will be doing on drugs and drinking in a few weeks.  No, I'm not in it.  I don't qualify....I hate drugs.  The library book that she is citing got a drop of water on it.  The 13 year old went into Nickelodeon drama voice.....The book is RUINED!  

No, I said.  The book isn't ruined.  Ruined would be if it were on fire.  Ruined would be if it was thrown in a puddle and run over numerous times.  That clean drop of water won't hurt it.

It suddenly smells like a mix of vanilla, cooler indoor temps of an old bar that has been lightly sprinkled with smoke.  And I like it.  Pass the cigars.    

The Last Aftershock to Record, I Hope

I had a little lesson in listening to my conscience.  No crickets with purchases from a haberdashery were involved.  And OMG – I am writing this post without a beer. 

I had a moment of the slippery slide of emotions that was so greased, I couldn’t keep ahold of it.  Granted, I held it long enough to edit the really unnecessary stuff out that were blatant indulgences from pent up years of feeling repressed, attacked and what would be the equivalent of an all night mindf*ck every night. 

On an unrelated note, and a brief one, why do I have do take the NPR media player out to dinner, desert and beg for it to play straight through while I use the internet simultaneously?  It’s like walking through a house of bubble wrap in brick shoes trying not to wake a baby.  *Conclusion of rant.

So I decided in this last very long round of Break-up Aftershocks to try try try and stick to the point, and at all costs, if I can’t keep myself from going off in a backward direction, to at least be respectful.

Not so much last night.  I suddenly found myself exhausted of all his special rules – when I first moved in, little by little I learned that if I acted certain ways or said certain things, I was going to trigger horrible fights.  Even trying to compliment him, I triggered fights.  (I still haven’t figured out how that works.)  I molded to what was needed to keep peace as much as possible (and it didn’t work many times but was good enough when it did).  It also meant biting my tongue, hiding my thoughts, not sharing who I really was in order to make the world that he seemed to want, available. He had a vision of how Things Should Be and I thought he was so smart and must be right.  When I caught on that maybe he wasn’t right per se, I found out that by challenging things, I would just make the household undulate in anger, resentment, blame and indignation.  Then there was me for a long time – confused.   

Flip never divulged his severe depression to me for over a year.  It wasn’t until I tried to leave him the first time that he fessed it up. The fact that he had been out of work for over a year, years earlier due to depression.  Maybe it would have helped to have known.  Instead he blamed me for everything and I had a hard time understanding his logic.  So much that I thought I was just aging faster all of a sudden.  My brain was in a fog.    

This all adds to a build-up.  All these things that have been put into my head – certain boxes – ok to do this, not ok to do this.  And then he does things that he would freak out if I had done.  Anyone can say, “Well, you don’t really know what he would do.”  Anyone in a long term relationship gets a little view into the patterns of their significant other.  Sometimes – rarely – they can be surprised by their partner’s reaction to things.  My guesstimate is that more often than not, you know exactly in what realm they will react.  Will they end blasted to Saturn from a freak out?  Or will they ground, take you into their arms and slather you in compassion?  I don’t know what that last one is.  That’s foreign to this relationship for me.  I had basically one person who this type of compassion came naturally to.  That was El. 

I’m not exactly sure whose emails he is reading but I certainly don’t think I am worthy of the comment telling me that I am psycho and “out there”  For such a smart guy, he never could understand points that I made during anything resembling a disagreement.  He rarely offers a reason as to why I deserve to live and breathe on the planet but is quick with the insults.  (See The List).  It’s only natural that I would ask him again - why are you hanging on to me, why do you want me – the Embodiment of Evil Who he says cuts him down constantly?  I’ve barely heard him say a bad word about his ex….he told me her Cosby Sweater “colorful” story but he told it in a gentle way, like he felt bad for her.  Through her serial cheating and drug addiction and child abandoning while on drug binges, at least he had compassion.  Always “Saint So and So is a good person” no matter what she did.  (I did resort to calling her Saint.  I did.  Can’t I be just a tiny bit bitter? Enough to be part of a cocktail?)  I am told how “bad” I am on so many levels. Even though financially I kept the household running for a couple of years and made sure he had health insurance for his many ailments and psychologist.  Even though I paid off his jeep so that he wouldn’t have a car payment (even though I still had one).  I’m still paying for the jeep.  I took the loan against my 401K and even though it’s been 2 years, it’ll be about 2 or 3 more.  I’ve been there for him through surgeries/procedures and to care for him afterwards.  I don’t know how to achieve his good graces at this point.  Flip hasn’t fessed up to any wrong doing or heart breaking at all. Instead I get the random email at night about how I’ve broken his heart.  Once again.  Geez hon, ever think there is a reason that I moved out twice and am so dissatisfied?  Ever think there is a reason that the cops had to be called in three of your relationships (ours thankfully did not have such drama grandeur). 

But this morning I have a Hate Hangover.  It feels like Restraint Failure to have gone outside my boundaries of what I would want to have actually said (as opposed to what I was really thinking) and diving right in to the emotional purge.  I admit, the plunge felt refreshing at the time.

So I decided to send a follow up email this morning to say that I apologize for the barbs but that the accusations are true for me.  I just could have stated it better the first time instead of the tar and feathering that I gave him last night.  I felt better apologizing for basically not speaking my feelings in a more respectful way.  Do you imagine that he returned my email with anything remotely warm, even 5 seconds on high in the microwave?  I believe I was called a horrendous, backstabbing blather-dee blah.  Something to that effect.  I fell asleep mid-insult. 

What exactly happened to cause all of this?  Oh so much over time I suppose.  I would have been hung by nosehairs and fishhooks if I had been conversing with my exes for one, but especially if I had said during the relationship that I outgrew that friendship, that I didn’t really need to be friends with that person anymore and then went further to run to them every time Flip and I separated, pouring my soul out to said ex.  How on earth this ex of his has such magical radar to suddenly call him whenever I’m out of the picture is unreal.  He was on the phone with me the other day and the other line rang.  He mind fumbled.  He said to me that he’d let it go to voicemail, then garbled what I had just said to him.  The conversation turned elsewhere in topic.  I drove it back because the red flag stabbing me in the gut was too sharp to ignore.  “Who was that?”  He paused and then said it was Saint, the ex.  He then went on to say that well he’d only spoken to her once – a couple of weeks ago.  So just once, right in all this time?  But that’s weird, she happened to call you in May as well.  That’s twice (that I know of).  Ok so minimizing the truth.  And attempting to let the call slide without saying anything.  Now in many other relationships, this sounds really like, so?  It probably would have here, had he “trained” me differently years ago.  But he trained me to cut off my male friends or deal with a lot of interrogation and unhappiness and withholding from affection.  No, he never Said to dump my friends.  Anyone who has been through the same thing will totally see how this works.  Then he mentioned that well, yeah, they call each other during hard times and so now, she has become Saint Shoulder.  Well that’s nice.  I’d love to see his reaction to the same situation if it were me.  Especially if the same ex kept recurring whenever we were apart.  And we’d just been nekked the night before. 

So things hurt. Or have been hurting or can hurt.  I can make decisions based on this.  I can go into that lull of rumination (oh wait, I did that here) and do the back and forth with him, fighting for my feelings to be validated, but they won’t be.  These feelings would have to go on a waiting list – there are still feelings from September of 2009 waiting to get in the Validation Club.  Or I can really just say, wow, I’m tired of talking about this.  Regenerate already!  Get out of this once and for all, erase the early 80s and start connecting with what is right now.  From there I can figure out who I want to be.