This is the point where I'm sure my editor would tell me that it's time to brush off my sense of humor and start using it again, which I think he just might be right. PTSD or not, this is one moment I'm not going to use my avoidant behaviors to get the better of me, I'm facing what's happened to me head on - and I'll be damned if I don't laugh about it in some way, shape or form.
Don't even get twisted, Ace (as usual) is reading along and he's going to be commenting behind the scenes...my quandary is whether or not to post his horrible grammar, lack of spelling skills and overall inability to coherently communicate for all of you to see. Seriously, every time he writes he embarrasses himself, so I don't know whether it's more fitting to just delete his incomprehensible English composition skills which denote 'his hurt feelings' (yeah, right, like he's got any, well, none he'll express unless no one is looking) or let you guys see what I've had to put up with for the last year and three months. It's so tempting to just show the world how bad it really is, but rather than be his sole judge and jury, I'll let you post to the Facebook comments his fate...I'll leave it to y'all on whether or not we pull his shorts down around his ankles and let you guys have at him full out. It's like my boss told me, "You've got a pack of big brothers that are just dying to get a hold of him for treating you badly." Not to mention a whole lot of other people who are just drooling to use him as a pinata in effigy.
Now that my phone hasn't been ringing off the hook telling me how awful I am (when the truth is, I haven't had the heart to pull my phone from my purse to read the text messages from Ace berating me for actually telling the truth about him on my blog) I've spent the day doing my laundry.
I've also spent today grateful for HBOGo. Hey, when you're a single girl and you're breaking down every five minutes into heart-wrenching sobs over the fact that you allowed yourself to get treated like dirt and constantly disappointed for the last year, a Sex and the City marathon is just what the doctor ordered.
While watching the show, peculiar moment after peculiar moment has been popping up, ones that sit there and scream "since when did Ace get a role on Sex and the City?" as I'm zooming around my house cleaning, doing laundry and so forth.
The first peculiar moment came while I was watching the end of Season 2, you know, where Carrie finally tells Big to get lost and she revels in the fact that once you're single again, you get time to do your laundry, clean your apartment and wail to all of your friends how awful your ex-boyfriend was? Being that I don't have any real friends in town, I get to skip all that, except to write it here, and just like Carrie wails on about Big, I just don't have the heart to emasculate Ace one more time except to say that to outline all of Ace's shortcomings wouldn't be my style. He's really a great guy, he's just got too much on his plate to actually be emotionally available. Well, that and the fact that his ex-wife has broken him beyond repair doesn't help his case much. That he's got an ungrateful, feral kid to boot just wraps it up in one big package that says, "Don't go there."
Anyway, as I kept watching, I was reminded what it was like to be in my early 30's again, married to the ex, completely miserable, and then it dawned on me...was I so much like Carrie that I just kept picking the wrong guys?
I'm 41, which if I listened to another film from my early 30's Sleepless in Seattle, I have all of the likelihood of finding a real relationship as I do being killed by a mugger on the street. Which I have to say, that thought isn't remotely reassuring, so I'm just going to refrain from dating altogether. I walk away from Ace with only one thought in my mind: Dated, done it, have the t-shirt, don't need to go there again.
But, between episodes, and between one Sex and the City epiphany after the next, I sat here drying my eyes as sometimes I'd have to hit pause just so I could have just one more heart-wrenching sob, use up another half-box of tissues before I could get up, move my laundry from the dryer to the top of the dryer to be folded, and the clothes in the washer either moved to the dryer or be hung up to air dry.
After about the 20th thing I put on a hangar to air dry, I suddenly looked around my laundry room and thought, "When did I get so many clothes?" when the truth really was, "When the hell was the last time I did full on laundry, ironing and all?"
The answer: "Before I started dating Ace."
What was worse was trying to make myself a pot of coffee, looking down and realizing that the plug next to my sink wasn't working. Ace, during all the months that I dated him, wailed on and on that he couldn't do anything for me; he couldn't fix my car, he couldn't do any home repairs and so forth, so the one moment I needed him? I found the GFI switch in my kitchen, pressed the 'test' button and reset it. The plug my coffee pot goes into is just fine, I just needed to reset the breaker. Yep, he was right, I don't need him to fix anything in my life, I can take care of it just fine, it just would have been nice for him to look like Superman for a moment. I guess I'm Supergirl, because I can fix things just fine on my own.
Which reminds me of something I told my pal Haley not too long ago, "The first six weeks are going to suck, but results may vary, please check with your doctor." And even though I'm not quite up to going through the next six weeks of epic suck, at least all of Ace's laundry that has been left here or brought home with me is adding up in one neat little pile by the front door, just waiting to be picked up. I'll be damned if I drive another inch for his benefit, but at least the clothes he'll pick up from here will be clean, folded and ready to wear.
Yes, I know, I'm so pathetic. I should have dumped them all in the toilet and cleaned with them. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so they're neatly folded, smelling like Downy by my front door. I'm praying I don't have to look into Ace's eyes when I give them back, it would be a moment of weakness where I would either cave and take him back or what I fear most, it will illicit a complete reflex response that would see me literally kick him square in the balls.
So, as I look over at the clock with it reading almost midnight, I'm going to put on my cordless headset back on, press play and enjoy watching Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda act out more parts of the last year of my life.
Viagra and all.
For the song of the day, I'm going to invoke the right to be selfish, so this one is for me. I've come to the point where I realize that my oldest personal adage is true: "There is nothing in the world a man can give me that I can't give myself."
I love you, Sheri. Go for the balls!! :) You deserve better and you will find it.
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