Month: August 2020

Something I’ve written about many times before, always in a manner of gratitude, is my ability to move quickly past something. I’ve always been amazed and appreciative of my ability to assess a situation [mostly] logically, and either problem solve the remedy or, remove myself completely, with minimal emotions.

I can’t be sure where I learned it.
Probably my narcissistic and avoidant parents, right?
[finger guns]

Circa 2013 I had started dating the door guy of our neighborhood bar. Everyone in my house, and friend group, had gone to school with him. He got us in to the bar every Friday night without having to wait in line or pay the cover. Our houses were just a couple stoplights away from each other, in a neighborhood that backed up to the American River. I broke up with him on the Fourth of July at my family’s barbecue, right after he told me he loved me.
A few weeks later, I was sitting on the couch with my roommate, sharing a blunt and a blanket while the TV played in the background. My roommate quickly showed me her phone, which displayed a snapchat that the ex-door-guy had sent her. A photo of his girlfriend after me.
“Yeah, I saw that one after work.” I dismissed the photo.
“Your exboyfriend sent you snapchat of his new girlfriend?” She furrowed her brow. “He’s obviously trying to hurt you.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged, “It probably would hurt my feelings… If I fucking cared.”
She took the blunt from me as she rolled her eyes: “Micaela, you’re not a girl.”

Last summer I was standing in my mom’s driveway collecting broken down boxes from her. “Well, they say,” she said while handing me more boxes, “It takes half the time of the relationship, to heal from it.”
I laid down down the last stack of boxes into my car, and pushed the trunk door down. Without expression at all, my eyes met hers, “No.”

My mom sent me a text the next weekend: “How ya doin’?”
I had just retrieved my phone from charging on the table next to my neighbor’s bed. I was shuffling down the hallway in just a pair of socks, and his tshirt, a glass of whiskey in the opposite hand, ‘I’m having the time of my life!’ I hit send, and laughed to myself as I tossed my phone onto the couch.

What a luxury to not be able to hear your heart scream when you don’t want to.

What a pathetic, passionless way to live.

A week after I moved out, we stood in the kitchen again passing a joint back and forth. Pretending things were normal, for just five minutes, for the sake of a brief moment of continued regularity, maybe everything could stop hurting for just a little bit.

Somehow it felt new, but this was still the exact same kitchen I had made dinner in every night. The exact same kitchen I baked cookies with your mom in. The exact same kitchen we used to pile with bags of groceries. The same kitchen I accidentally flooded that one time. The same kitchen we made love on the counters in. The same kitchen I used to open the basement door from, and holler to you in the wood shop that dinner was ready. And then again in 5 minutes that it was getting cold goddammit get your ass up here. The same kitchen we sat on the floors of, eating pizza out of our hands, beyond exhausted, the night we moved in.

You stood in the kitchen that day and you apologized to me. You told me you were sorry for dragging me through this with you.

I remember feeling the most angry with you, in that moment.

Fuck your apology, and fuck you.

How was I supposed to rebuild my life, with your apology. How was I supposed to forget how perfect our relationship had been, with your apology. How was I supposed to forget what a monster you had been the week before I moved out. I gave you all of my understanding, all of my patience, all of my trust. What the fuck was I supposed to do now, with your fucking regret.

Its been a year simce then, and I think back to this moment, and every second of it that I took for granted; I am wildly grateful for your apology, and for your recognition that I didn’t deserve the way we ended. I realize now, that apology, will be the only one I ever get.