I'm on my fifth mile when I think I see his car. A Mercedes slips by me, black and flat in the back and headed for his street. Oh god, is that him? I watch the back of his car, wondering, waiting for it to turn at the right place and confirm that after two months, we have finally run across each other on accident. I reflect that my ass looks good and my running wear does not clash horribly. I am even wearing tidy pigtails. It's a good day to be seen.
Except. Everything is different now.
He emailed me yesterday, two months into a 6-month separation I agreed to but didn't want in the end, to ask if we could talk. I said no. This last month has been magical for me. The hick, who is in fact not disposable at all and feels more like a lifelong friend, recommended a peanut butter banana sandwich before my run, and suddenly I could go on for miles and like it. Endorphins kicked in. Happiness occurred. And the more of that I had, the more I let myself be...myself. I say fuck you more often and the people who laugh and hug me are the people who stick. I love my life.
I didn't want to know what he thought or wanted. I wanted to keep living in this sweet pocket of self care and laughing. I wanted the sandwich and the running shoes and the quiet of my own spot, my own emotional territory. I pissed in the doorway of my house and asked him to wait for April.
He didn't.
He responded with reasons and needs I would not refuse. He pulled deeply on my decency and my desire to care for those I love, my desire to be fair. So I drove up the hill again last night. That fucking hill is a story of catering to his world more than to my own, my car driving up over and over while his remained in the carport and he awaited my enjoyment of his liquor, his music, his acres of trees, his dog and his giant flat screen t.v. I drove and parked and shook my head. I can't fucking believe I'm here. I walked inside to the clean shave of his face and the new presents for his girl and the things he needed to say.
He promised me everything. Everything. I won't even say those things publicly, I won't write them down, because they speak so well of his need and his hope. They make me want to wrap him up in my arms, cover your ears, oh sweet baby him and make him safe from such unretractable exposure. All was answered for him, all resolved. He knew, finally and absolutely, and all that was left was for me to fall headlong into the life I had so long begged him for.
I didn't.
I told him how much I loved him and that I am single. And then I told him how much I love my life now, how conditional our life had felt and how good it feels to wake up and make choices based only on who I am and not on what will keep him from leaving again. I told him, oh god, I told him I had let go. I hadn't known really for sure if I was ready to say that. I was a fury of confusion before I left for his house, changing shirts and donning makeup and cussing at and about him. And then I heard all those acknowledgements and gorgeous, sparkling promises, and I felt them roll away from my impermeable being with wonder and deep regret. There it was, unrefutable: I was done. Shit, and thank god, I was done.
The Mercedes turns the wrong way on the wrong street, it might be dropping The Girl off somewhere, it could still be him, and right there in that thought I see that it feels good to be chased and also that this is exactly why I didn't want to talk with him yet. I don't want to be wondering like this. I just. Want. To run.
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P.S. No idea why the font issues, typepad is being a bitch.
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