An Open Letter To My Ex

Today marks the 24th anniversary of the day we met, next month will be the 20th anniversary of our breaking up. If that's not a clue as to how pathetic this blog entry is gonna be I don't know what would be. Feel free to leave now and save me the embarrassment...but ye gods I needed to get this off my chest. It's been a long time since we were together and we weren't exactly together for those four years either - not just the standard drama of breaking / making up either. I wish that the fact I'm still thinking of you, and our anniversaries, meant ours was a wonderful relationship, but it wasn't.

Believe it or not, this would be a lot easier if you had been the love of my life but you weren't. The love of my life, so far as I can tell, is a person I met five years ago tomorrow...but will never be with. Even knowing it's not gonna happen the lowest moment of the past five years has been better than the highest point of my time with you. And if those two extremes weren't enough, the next bit is extra difficult to say - that's all there's been for me.

One shitty relationship (dat wit u) in my teens and the unrequited love of my midlife crisis. Nothing more. It's not something I'm proud of because it hasn't been by choice. Twenty years single.

I swing between wanting you to know that and hoping you never do. Today I'm in a wanting you to know that mood. You didn't have to pretend to love me...not that you made much of a pretence about it really but that's what you did. You didn't have to lie and plan a future with me; you chose to do that. What did I do to deserve that, and why should I pretend that you didn't cause me immense pain? Why shouldn't you know that your actions had consequences that I still live with?  Do you even remember that we were still planning our wedding to the day you walked out?! YOU were the one that insisted on a wedding, why would you even do that??? 

Obviously I was an idiot for imagining that was ever going to happen but all I had ever wanted was to be loved, that's why I believed all your BS; because I desperately wanted to believe no matter how much evidence was stacked against it. Even after you left I spent YEARS believing it was my fault, that it was something I had done. I tore myself apart over it and I know damn well I was hard to live with, I know I wasn't perfect but I also know I did everything I could to keep my family together. I would have done ANYTHING; I gave EVERYTHING I had. It wasn't even close to being enough. Because I would rather take the blame than face the truth: you never wanted me. I figured it out eventually but it didn't help any. I had spent such a long time thinking "well XXXXXX loved me so eventually someone else will" - that thought had given me strength and now I don't even have that. Just like for years I thought it was because I was fat...so I lost a load of weight and discovered that no, it's just me, no one's interested and I'm gonna die alone. Maybe one day I'll make my peace with that.

I swing between being pathetically grateful I even had your pale imitation of love and being angry at you for giving me false hope. Today angry wins. You didn't owe me anything but you also didn't have to do this to me and I will never understand why you did. I assume you never considered what it would do to me, or what would become of me after you were through. Maybe you just never realised how much pain I was capable of feeling.

Over all the years I don't suppose you've ever given me a second thought. I've thought of you though... Sometimes I hope karma's being a bitch to you, even if I was the only one you ever hurt this way. Sometimes I hope you're a better person today than you were back then. Sometimes I hope you're happy, cos what's the point of us both being miserable? Mostly I hope you never treated anyone else like this; if you did, I hope that they found someone else...I wouldn't wish my life on anyone. Even you.

I've wondered what you would have thought if you'd ever seen how things were with us. Whether you'd have been shocked at how broken I was, or at the fact that I'm still alone. Maybe, in your mind, this is what I deserved... Did you ever consider what it would do to our kids to grow up without a father, or did you imagine another man would step up and take that role? I don't suppose you ever thought about any of us. Sometimes I wish you could know what we've done and achieved without you, that you knew what you missed out on, that we're better for not having had you be a part of it but I do realise you wouldn't care. You chose not to be a part of our lives, you chose not to even stay intermittently in touch. You got exactly what you wanted: you got out.

I'm glad you walked out and stayed gone, for all the hardships it brought on me and our kids. The only way you could have possibly hurt me more was for me to have to see you being the husband and father in another family the way you couldn't be for us. Whatever the last twenty years have been like for you I am sure I didn't need to see it. 

Obviously I'm still an idiot for thinking about such things. You weren't capable of caring when I knew you. And if you changed, as I hope you have, then the man who hurt me is long gone. It's all pointless.

But as a bit of a footnote: don't get to thinking I miss you. I don't even miss what we had cos frankly it was actually pretty awful. I've known all along I had a lucky escape. The only reason I even think of you is that there was no one else. If there had been, the memory of you would have long since been relegated to the dustiest corner of my mind along with all the other things best forgotten - like school bullies and that bad pizza in Malta. I deserved better than you but you were all I got...and that pisses me off.

I want this post to serve as a warning. I don't care about the whys and wherefores of what caused your destructive relationship(s) to be that way. Just remember that while the shit you do can come back on you it definitely stays with whoever you did it to in the first place. I will go through the rest of my life wishing I knew why my life had to turn out this way...why my karma is shit...what sin I committed and how could I ever atone for it...all because he said he loved me. I'd have been better off never having had a relationship at all.

Sour Apples

It has been quite a while since I last blogged and I apologise for coming back on a sour note.

Today I am feeling...resentful.

My sort of step dad is going into hospital today for surgery tomorrow due to suspected bowel cancer. He's a wonderful bloke and I'm very concerned for him - yet cautiously optomistic as, so far, all the tests have come back clear. My mum has been with him since the alarm bells sounded (they don't live together, hence the "sort of") and I don't resent the fact he's getting the care and support he needs. Not at all. I'm glad she's come through for him. Nuturing isn't in her nature.

Meanwhile, my dad has been expressing concern for his on/off girlfriend who has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the mother. I don't like the sound of the mother in the slightest but I sympathise with what her daughter is going through, and will go through in the coming months.

So what is it that I resent? I resent that when I was going through my last cancer scare 4 years ago my mum didn't come and hold MY hand through all the appointments... Not, I suppose, that I really would've wanted her there but I don't think it ever occurred to her that I might need support.

I don't mean to sound like a stroppy adolescent but I've never felt loved or cared for by my parents. I'm an independent minded woman because I've had to be. I learned early in life that being sick or injured wouldn't make any difference. If my kid had been hit by a car at age 7 I'd have been beside myself with worry; I'd have cried and held my child for hours and I'm not exactly Ms Maternal myself. That's not how it was when I was hit by a car...

My ex left me just before my first cancer scare when I was 20. He was the only person I'd ever really believed cared about me but as I lay in hospital, frightened and alone after emergency surgery at 15 weeks pregnant with our second child, he told me on the phone he couldn't be bothered to visit me and bring me in a nightie. My parents were over a hundred miles away.

So, four years ago, I'd found another lump. My mum was taking me and my kids on holiday and I found the mass just hours before we were due to depart. I told my mum straight away and her reaction was to carry on regardless: a week's delay in going to a doctor wouldn't make any difference...after all, it had been okay last time! I agreed, partly cos I knew she'd be furious if I insisted on staying behind.

It WAS okay. Perhaps they were worried about me and didn't show it so as not to frighten me more than I already was... But ultimately I don't believe that.

I don't want to be needy and greedy and selfish but I wish so badly that I had someone I KNEW loved me, knew there was someone who'd be there at the drop of a hat to hold me and tell me everything would be all right. It frightens me that instead this searing loneliness may be all I'll ever know.

I want my step dad to be okay. I don't want to feel this way. I want to feel like a 33 year old independent woman and not like a lost and lonely child...

The Karma Kwiz

Question 1
There is a strange cylindrical object underneath your desk, is it:-
a) a bin for my rubbish
b) a bin for all sorts of crap like that half drunk cup of manky coffee and rotting fruit
c) I haven't been trained for this - it might be a bin...I chuck my rubbish in its general direction
d) I don't know and I fear it

Question 2
You're on the phone after office hours and the cleaner comes in, do you:-
a) end my call, it's a personal one anyway
b) carry on regardless
c) speak up. It's a confidential call but the cleaner probably doesn't 'speeka de englisch'
d) glare at the cleaner. How dare she interupt me.

Question 3
It's Friday on a Bank Holiday weekend and the bins won't get emptied until Tuesday morning, do you:-
a) take my food scraps home for the compost heap - I do anyway
b) wrap my food scraps before putting them in the bin - I do anyway
c) carry on regardless
d) eat a couple of fruit baskets for lunch and leave it all to moulder in my waste paper basket

Question 4
Under your desk is:-
a) very little
b) a few storage boxes
c) a lot of messy clutter including about fifteen pairs of shoes
d) how would I know? It's scary down there!

Question 5
When I see the cleaner doing her rounds do you:-
a) say "hi" or "bye" or "thanks" or just smile and nod
b) ignore her
c) give her a wary look
d) glare. I get paid more therefore she's below my notice, right?

Question 6
The cleaner is hoovering, working her way around the office. Do you:-
a) make sure you're out of the way by the time she reaches your desk
b) stay put, she can hoover around me, I'm busy
c) empty the hole-punch on the floor so she can hoover that up too
d) contrive to stand in her way as many times as is possible and then act surprised to see her when she says "excuse me please"

YOUR RESULTS
Mostly As - Your karma is excellent
Mostly Bs - Your karma is fine but there's room for improvement
Mostly Cs - Your karma needs work. A lot of work.
Mostly Ds - Your karma is TERRIBLE! Heaven help you...and it's nothing to do with that voodoo doll that looks a lot like you strung up in the cleaning supplies closet. Honest.