Fiction is the Only Way You're Dealing

There was a diaper sitting on the top of my over-the-toilet shelf.  I saw it every single time I walked into the bathroom.  I finally threw it away, because he'll never be back here to wear it again.

There is a transformer in the glove box of my car that I discovered when I was changing out my insurance card.  I shut it quickly and will forget about it for the next six months, because he'll never ride in my car and play with it again.

While folding my socks yesterday afternoon, I came across a tiny sock.  Not mine, not Aiden's.  Out of frustration I threw it behind the couch, where it is still laying.  It has no mate, not where I live.  I will probably pick it up and throw it away the next time I vacuum.

Little pieces of them are still clinging to the little pieces left of me.  I find them in random places, cozy corners, in the songs I hear on the radio or the photos that I unexpectedly come across in my phone or iPod.  I hear about movies, and they come to mind.

Not just one, not just the other, but ALL of them. 

My heart doesn't just have one hole in it, but three.

I read and I write, and I sit alone in my room some nights and cry.  I disappear, and it still doesn't feel like enough.

I am okay, until suddenly I am not.

I am chasing down all that is good in my life.  I am surrounding myself with people who not only love me back, but don't invalidate the way I feel at any given moment.  That give as much as they get, if not more.  I have endless amounts of cuddles and forehead kisses, and people willing to sit with me so I don't have to do it alone.  

I know I'm not the broken one.  I know that I did everything I could and everything within my power to make this man love me, and it still wasn't enough.  But even though I'm not broken, and even though I'm able to force myself into moving on, into looking back fondly, because so much of it was good, and so little of it was bad; I am still the one with three gaping holes in my heart. 

It's always been so much easier for him to let go of me.

Maybe Happiness is Worth the Chance of a Bitter End

So many of us get stuck in ruts.  We do the same things over and over again, even when nothing changes.  We eat the same foods, take the same routes, love the same people.  We survive.  Sometimes, that's all we can do to get through the day is to hold onto those routines, those ruts, one foot in front of the other.  Then there are times when our ruts drag us down, beat the crap out of us, and leave us.

Mistakes are meant to be learned from, not repeated.

Fuck.

Shame on me.

The Art of Breaking a Heart

I am not a serial monogamist.  Other than a handful of short lived relationships, I have been single for the better part of a decade.  I have been given excuses such as, "it's not you, it's me," "I miss you too much, and I can't miss you anymore," "we work better platonically."  Etc.  I have broken up with ONE person in my entire life.  Some of that is due to staying in a poisoned relationship long after it was dead, and waiting for the other person to end things, some of it has been due to some of my own short comings and neuroses.  Most of it has been men who have gotten tired of sleeping with the same woman.  (hurtful, yes, but essentially true, see: old cow.)

The one boy I ever broke up with was my very first high school boyfriend, freshman year.  We would walk through the halls at school holding hands until our palms were sweaty, and he would call my house every night.  After a week I was tired of him invading my personal space and taking time away from my girlfriends, so I dumped him.  I'm not proud of myself, but it is what it is.

Yesterday, I found myself in much the same predicament.  I had met a man, he is a very nice man.  He treated me well, lived here in town, and thought I was the bees knees (for lack of a better term.)  None of these were good enough reasons to keep stringing him along, (which is what I felt like I was doing.)

Do serial daters/dumpers get used to being the bad guy/girl?  Does breaking someone else's heart ever not break your own?  Because even though my heart wasn't in it, which is why I was ending things in the first place, my heart broke telling him that we could no longer pursue a romantic relationship.  My heart is still broken over the look on his face when I told him that we needed to talk.  Granted, I know that my heart will heal much faster in this instance than in any of the others, because, like I said, it wasn't all in.

Did all of the men who have broken my heart in the past, who have listened to me cry over the phone, or sat with me while I cried in person, had their hearts broken by the process of it as well?  It really can put things into perspective.  It shouldn't be something easy.  It shouldn't be something you're able to do without even thinking about it.  I know that most times one or both people know it's over long before the words are said, and maybe that gives the other person time enough, and courage enough, to find the right words to say. 

I am still at a loss for mine.