Selling Out

I was out with some girlfriends the other night (thanks to kickball – I have actual friends!) and my friend Ghost was giving me crap for the complete 180 that I’ve done since we met. She and I had a mildly-intoxicated late night confessional in my car way back at the beginning of the summer and we discussed our mutual issues with men. I was in serious PC/relationship backlash at that moment and I went off (as I was wont to do around that time) about the possibility that I’m not the marrying type and that I don’t think you need a relationship to complete you, and blah blah blah. Ghost brought that up as we were out on the town last weekend and said, “Now look at you!”

So, yes, I’ve sold out. The odd thing about it is that it doesn’t feel like selling out. Once I regained my independence in March and remembered how much happier I was alone, it seemed perfectly reasonable for me to assume all relationships would make me feel smothered, drained and miserable. But Joe Montana doesn’t make me feel that way. Yes, we talk every day (because how else can you sustain a long-distance relationship?), but neither of us is ever upset or resentful if the other is too busy to talk at certain times or can’t talk for very long or puts their own social obligations ahead of spending hours on the phone. I had a little too much to drink when I went out with Ghost and the girls and passed out on a friend’s couch instead of calling Joe Montana. Rather than being upset with me, he was happy for me that I had so much fun.

I keep thinking that I should be more worried about selling my Single Self out – but it doesn’t feel like I’ve had to give anything up to be with Joe Montana. I haven’t had to change my life or how I do things for him, I’ve just been able to add him to everything that was already here that has been working so well for me for the past 6 months. So is it nuts for me to think that maybe I am the marrying kind – as long as it’s Joe Montana that I’m thinking of marrying?

Ghost told me that she’s totally jealous of what I’ve got going on, and if she felt the way I feel she’d be married in about two weeks. I told her people would think I’m insane if I were to rush into marriage that fast (or even this fast). She said, “I wouldn’t think you’re insane. Well, maybe insanely awesome.”

Lyrics of the Day

“…These wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below, who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end.” Death Cab for Cutie Brothers on a Hotel Bed

PC: Epilogue

I really try not to get defensive when people give their views and opinions on what I write about, because it would be pointless to write in a public forum and expect all comments to be flattering. But I'm going to address this subject one last time, because I just feel like I should say a thing or two.

I realize that my accounts of my relationship with PC are one-sided. The catch is that I was never 100% honest with how things were between us. Never. From the moment that PC knew about this blog, he constantly brought it up - when things were good or bad. He'd say, "So are you going to write about this in your blog? Are you going to make me look like a jerk? Are you going to tell your friends and your mom and your sister about this?" Because of this constant reminder that he felt what I was writing and saying affected him, I glossed over much of the bad stuff and all of the worst stuff really. Even after he left, I pulled punches.

I never felt that I was a woman who could be abused, in any way, but I've come to believe differently.

No, he did not ever actually hit me.

Would he have? If things had continued on the course that they were on (and they would have had I not ended it once and for all), I think he would have. In the last week that we were together, he scared the hell out of me more than once and one time he grabbed me forcefully enough for it to hurt and enough to send a million red flags and warning signals through my head.

With what I know now, and what I have found out since PC and I broke up, there was a lot more wrong and a lot more going on than I ever knew or probably ever will know. I realize that I sound cold when I talk about my frustrations concerning what I hope will be my final communication with him, but 6 months of half-knowledge and endless speculation have put me in a place where it makes me physically ill to speak to him and sometimes even to think of him. I felt a lot of guilt for a long time (guilt is a lot of what kept me with him for as long as I stayed), but I can't feel guilty any more. He made the choices he made - over and over and over again. He manipulated me every chance that he had, doing his best to ensure that I wouldn't leave him - that I would feel like I couldn't leave him.

He's not the worst guy in the world, there are plenty that are far worse, but he's an extremely troubled and messed up guy and he did everything he could to hide the worst and keep me tied to him. I was miserable with him and I thank my lucky stars every day that I finally had the wherewithal to end it.

By the time that I had been with PC for 3 months (as I've been with Joe Montana now), I had spent probably a week's worth of nights up and crying because of things that PC did or did not do. And those were the good times.