Problematic

It's been 4 months since I found out you cheated on me for 8 years. It's been a year and 2 months since I moved out. It's been almost exactly a year since our cat died. I'm not sure how long any of this should affect me. It's been 4 months. I find myself thinking that when I lost what I knew about you I lost parts of what I knew about myself. I find myself struggling to hold on to some parts of our past because if everything is different in light of this betrayal, what was real in that third of my life? Is my affection for you now just in reaction to a string of lies? I never love you in the moment. I only love you in the long-term. I only love you as a memory. And memories are always deceitful. We form memories. They're not factual. I only love you as the person I thought you were because I don't know who you really are. Outside of selfish and self-serving. To which you would say "but everyone is", but are they? We're both looking fo

When I was younger, all the shows and movies seemed to be about how things would work out. People got their dream jobs. Guys got their dream girls and sassy hags found someone who could bring them down to earth. You lived in a nice house or a great big apartment in the sky. Everyone had a tight knit circle of friends. F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Now all the shows are about people you thought were going to end up together splitting up. If you haven't watched it You're The Worst has this amazing sub-plot about a veteran dealing with PTSD. I got two As and a B last semester. And really bad panic attacks. I spent last weekend in Galveston with the daughter of the love of my life so far. It was fun. She had a blast even though there was much too much time in the car. She was a good sport about everything. We never found an inner tube for the lazy river and I was too scared to go on the water slides. She did. She ran into waves. She rushed across incredibly hot sand. I got her tiny ice crea

I don't want to live my life arguing over people and objects. I don't want to live my life arguing. I guess that's easier to say on the other side of throwing away or consuming most of Stassney's stuff. In a lot of ways it's not, though. I could always find something else. I could always be looking for something else. There's infinite potential to argue. There's a thousand things a day to be angry about, if not more. Just for me. What do I want to choose? Arguing is a choice. For a very long time it did not feel that way. Even now, I'm sure it's still compulsory. I know it is a choice. In my head. I know I don't have to participate. In this one section of my brain that knows things when I am calm, I know I don't have to fight. That same part of my head knows that happiness can be a choice, too. Settle. Be humble. Sit down. Make your choice. For a very long time I believed that I shouldn't allow myself to be slighted. I shoul

"This is what I give you," he says, through a grimace of pain. "I give you this when I have nothing left. I do this. These fights, they're not for me...they're for you. This does nothing for me. This does not help me. I'm doing this for you." It's a gift that cuts. It's deep and my bones are exposed to the cold so I scream in return. I lash violently. I drag weapons out of reservoirs because I'm losing. I'll never get what I want. Just this stinging evil and the look of pain that accompanies it. All I want is love but I must not know the word because every time I reach for it this happens. He tells me he gives me this- his sorrow, as though it were something I could cherish and cradle. As though it must be what I want. It's the only thing I seem capable of pulling. It's where all conversation heads. So it must be what I want. It's not just that I'm lost in a thorny hedge-maze. This was my goal all along. Pain. Forever.