He said in order for me to change, it would be a Herculean task.
Herculean.
I pictured the word coming out of his mouth, hovering in the air between us, seeking me out. It bored its way through my eyeball and dug its little tentacle body into my badly bruised heart. That word, that word. I thought, Wow, he's such a fucker. How little faith he had in me. I realized at that point, he never really knew me. Knew what I was made of, knew what I was capable of...
Almost two years later, the memory of those words coming out of his mouth and hovering in the stillness of our darkened bedroom still sting. It would be the last night we would spend together.
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I saw him tonight. The thing that I had most feared--to run into him--happened. Thank God we were walking in opposite directions. Thank God I it was near dark. Thank God our glance at each other lasted, mercifully, for only a few seconds. Just long enough for me take in the entire tableaux of he and his girlfriend, holding hands, taking a walk around the lake where we used to take walks when we were happy, years ago.
A pit formed in my stomach. I immediately called L. and prayed she would pick up. Wait, wait, until she stops talking…she doesn't stop so I blurt out, "Guess who I saw?" No need to guess, she knew instantly.
Dutifully, she "talks me down" as good girlfriends trained in the arts of post-breakup protocol are wont to do. Dammit, if I only I had gotten this walk over with earlier in the day, if only I had found a parking space closer to the gym and not the park, if only I hadn't eaten that macaroni and cheese last night, if only I hadn't stopped caring for myself for so many months, if only I was the person I was supposed to be when I finally did see him again, fit, healthy and happy… if only…
I knew, in my heart of hearts, this guy was not the right person for me. He never appreciated me as a person. Really, never, ever made me feel truly, deeply loved. He didn't get my humor. And, at my most generous, I never found him to by funny. Not in the slightest. Seven years of pity laughs. He was socially awkward and was missing that empathy gene that enabled one to relate to other human beings. Didn't like his mother. He possessed an astonishing duality that caused him to feel arrogant and full of himself at times, and crippling, immobilizing insecurity at others. It was maddening. He was selfish, more often than he was generous (which was rare). And he was lazy, perfectly content to let me support him after getting summarily canned at the prison hospital where he worked. Fired for harassment, no less. The inappropriate touching of a co-worker. A real winner. The morning I tossed him out--mind you, I tossed him out. I never thought it would be me doing the tossing because, after all, I am my mother's daughter. She was the Queen of Putting Up With Shit and by virtue of staying in a craptastic relationship, I had taken my place in court as Princess of Self-Loathing and Worthlessness. The morning I told him to get out, he asked me, Where was my dignity? Why hadn't I forced him to get a job yet? What was wrong with me, that I put up with this shitty behavior?
I know.
Can you believe the goddamn balls of that statement? I swear on a stack of King James' Bibles, those words really did come out of his mouth. In the end, I told him to get the hell out, that I was utterly sick and tired of his bullshit behavior, that I had no interest in having him as a friend and that if he ever saw in me in the street, as the song goes, just walk on by…
I have carried this little furball of fear in my throat for almost two years. Scared that if he actually did see me and I wasn't in perfect, Warrior-princess condition, that in my minds' eye was my true state of being, had it not been for his inability to love and support me in a way that would make me feel loved and supported and awesome the way you feel when you're with someone who actually likes you, let alone loves you…. If I wasn't all that, I would prove him right all along. That it really was too Herculean a task to change myself for the better. For all his failings as a boyfriend, a man, a human being, he would be right about this one thing. And, it happened tonight. Yeesh.
I feel bad, mostly, not because I may have proved him right but mostly because I feel I have proven myself wrong. The ire, that motivating ire that I relied on, that I banked on, to get me started, to sustain my spirit when feeling down, has all but dissipated and has morphed into feelings that most resemble…what? I'm not actually sure but it probably lives somewhere in the neighborhood of shame and hopelessness.
Power, as defined by some, is the ability to change. I have to re-discover mine. There's nothing stopping me from untapping my potential for fabulousness. I have to keep things simple and remember to be kind and loving to myself. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that.
