When did your heart go missing?

I had this narrative all this time that you missed me, loved me even. You made maybe one half assed attempt to reconnect years later (after shit went to hell) and long ago (ten years, but late night and provoked by other circumstances). I guess I’m happy for you that you’ve moved on and that you’re occupied, even though I moved on and am occupied for some time now. I honestly feel unbalanced. I loved you and you wouldn’t have – no, you refused to believe that I could, but you were my refuge at one point. You abandoned me in the thick of things, we both know that, and I’m older and torn somehow knowing how life is now. I want you to be happy but I guess I hoped you’d try harder and if you were too weak to try, I had hoped you’d be alone because you destroyed me. We were both so stubborn then & probably now, and I’m so happy for the life I have now, but we could have chosen each other at one point and we chose to be callous. Honestly, you chose to be callous when I needed you the most. If that doesn’t say enough, I suppose I was right to not confide and stupid enough to think it mattered. It confirms all I felt then. I can’t say I don’t wish you well, but the fuck it hurt and probably the better off we are for escaping.

2/17/23

I’m waiting with the rest of the parents at the basketball hoops for the elementary school exit, when a conversation to my left grows to loud to dismiss. Two moms are talking and it seemed they’d had familiarity enough with each other to have their phone numbers. It appeared to me that one woman had flipped the other off in a joking manner as she passed while she was walking in the snow and the other was using a vehicle earlier. The woman in scrubs, offended by this action then took to verbally assaulting and humiliating the other woman with the dog in front of all of us. She called her a ghetto ass batch, white trash, jobless. Nasty insults and completely uncalled for in my opinion, the woman being yelled at tries to extricate herself from the situation as soon as she realizes the other mom hadn’t received the gesture as intended.

An older woman comes to to greet the woman with the dog, and its not long before scrubs lady comes back around with the insults and escalating volume.

I intervene. I should tell her she’s being cruel, but instead I use my best mom voice to tell her she needs to drop it. She tries to counter with something not worth remembering, and I tell her she’s not dropping it, she’s stringing it out. Something about my presence gets her to finally cease. The basketball yard is flooded with kids and I disappear into the crowd to find my own. I’m shaking with anxiety of the whole interaction, but am greeted with smiles by someone who missed me and is excited to tell me about their day.

The parent teacher conferences come later. My kid is above and beyond the reading requirements for this stage by a very large margin, however struggles staying on task and handwriting neatness. We’re hoping the arrival of the new eyeglassws glasses might improve some of this, and the teacher suggests task timers to move the kid through helping at home.
We stop by the book fair on the way out thats being held in the library. There’s a sweet paper mache rainbow tree in the middle of the room and the books on display for purchase around it. My kid picks a book about a kitten so cute it causes everything to explode, and she asks to get a picture with The Cat in The Hat display by the doorway.

I got mad

At my husband for some sideways comment about my weight. ( I’ve admittedly struggled with my mom bod but I have the expectation of my partner to respect my feelings and understand when they’ve been hurt and why) He works with a bunch of his bros where that kind of talk is the standard and meant in friendly jest. I’m not so keen on it.

However I use my anger to overcome a hurdle I’ve been fencing for awhile and finally lay down some tattoo lines on my fleshy fingers. I’d been building it up and overthrowing it for so long that it felt necessary to just do it to get it done instead of fretting about a design or symbol. The lines were clean enough , a little geometric criss cross going down my middle finger followed by a star on my pointer to balance the moon on my ring. It felt good to get it out but the heal will be the real judge for quality.

My husband apologizes when I wake him up to show him. The next day he allows me to lay some ink lines down on him too with my version of a little pirate skull he picked out from a tattoo coloring book some years back.

I’d been warned by my professional friends that the cheaper machines could be a little more biting. He chose his ankle for placement and is quite twitchy during the overall experience even though he has a number of large pieces himself, there’s not much blood at all but we stop before taking a shader to it. Regardless, I feel like the resulting piece came out pretty decent. Many of his friends he shows are complimentary, and I get a few volunteers for future practice. Could have turned out worse.
The following dayis Valentine’s and he takes me to my favorite restaurant, The Brutal Poodle. As always the food is excellence , and an absolute treat since I’m always the one cooking at home.

Heyo

I’m not sure why you can’t say it.

Maybe you don’t.
Or it’s your pride.

Do you love me like I love you?

Unconditionally.

I’ve always felt there was something much larger at play here.

Maybe I’m just insane.

Love you too.

“Emotionally unavailable”

I thought no one could ever hurt me that bad again but I was wrong. I am such a fool. The writing has been on the wall for at least a month now. To think I’ve been actually trying to hold it all in, give you space. I knew exactly what you were doing the whole time, not that you’ll even tell me the truth now when the whole world knows. You couldn’t even be discreet. I had to unfollow you on socials because it was just another big fuck you to me almost every day. You chose everyone over me. Him, all of your friends, people you don’t even talk to anymore. You never missed an opportunity to remind me how unimportant I was to you. Did I freak out about you blowing up my phone for a week about your dog food, even though you weren’t actually home the entire time, because in your haste to grab your stuff the last time we were together you forgot it? And your coat…in February. I bet you couldn’t even tell me what you left here. You couldn’t last time. But you made sure to grab your lingerie and sex toys. Was it barely even 24 hours before you had brought them over the most recent time I had to save you from him? We didn’t even use any of it, and still had the best sex we’ve ever had the night before you left. No, but I can’t be upset even though this clearly affects me pretty significantly. Im just walking on eggshells with you after all the lying and betrayal and gaslighting. I never even said anything to you because you’d just throw that in my face and tell me its none of my business and I’m being creepy and thats why you don’t want to see me. Or text me in the middle of the night with crazy accusations from some random number like I should be scared of your little chihuahua of a bf. Extra points for intentionally misspelling “stalking” as “stocking” so I might actually believe it was him texting me as you from his phone because you always told me how stupid he is. Nice try, but I already have his number, remember? From work?

There’s so much more I need to say but probably will now never get the chance to. I am so in love with you J, and you ripped my heart out into shreds like your dog with the toy I got her. Twice in the last month. Despite his tremendous and never ending list of sins, you will never stop going back to him. I wish you would’ve given me even 10% what you give him. That doesn’t matter now. I guess I’ll just have to take the pain and wait until the next time you call me, terrified and beat up, to come get you.

Until then, all my love.