Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Story I Decided Not to Tell

This past Saturday I was listening to a friend’s band play an outdoor concert. Another friend I hadn’t seen for a while stopped by to talk and asked about my bike wreck. I showed off my bruises, told her what happened. And then she said with a wiggle of her eyebrows, “So you were riding with that guy you wrote about on your blog, right? The one you went on your first ride with and then flew an airplane with?” It always takes me a few long seconds to answer that question; it has come up at least a dozen times in the last month in one form or another. “No,” I said, “We only rode together that one time. I don’t see him….well, I see him sometimes… but he refuses to speak to me and he literally turns his back on me and acts like I don’t exist when we’re in the same place…” I didn’t say the last part, even though it’s true and fresh and raw. I just shook my head instead. “Really? What happened?” she asked. My own damn fault. I wrote about him on my blog when I was happy and having fun with him. When I thought I wasn’t falling ... but I was. “He just…he doesn’t want to…Umm, you know I really don’t understand it myself, but he really doesn’t want to be around me anymore.” She nodded sympathetically and let me off the hook by changing the subject.

At times like that I could lie, but I don’t. I don’t like or respect liars and, even to save my dignity, I don’t want to be one. And yet, a good lie could sure help a girl save face in situations like this. I could say those posts were just for entertainment, but he was never really significant to me. I could say he fell madly in love with me so I had to tell him goodbye because I’m a free spirited hippie and I don’t roll like that. I could say he always wanted to hold my hand while we walked and to make out shamelessly in pool bars and he'd cry over movies, and I don't like that kind of romantic bullshit. Or that he had to leave the country on a secret mission and if I told you about it, he’d have to kill you. Or that I was going to meet him after the concert at my place for hot, kinky sex, but he was “tied up” at the moment. Or I could say he’s an asshole and I kicked his fucked up ass to the curb and to please never to bring him up again because he’s dead to me, but….no, that’s not what happened with him. The truth is I don’t really know. Silence leaves a void for only imagination to speak, but it doesn’t bring resolution, peace or clarity.


What happened Saturday has happened so often I feel compelled to write about it so I don’t feel like I’m leaving the lie of that relationship hanging out here on my blog, this place where I try to be as honest and authentic as I can. And I guess I hope something will happen… maybe writing about it, telling the condensed version of a long story, will help me get some clarity, let go, stop trying to figure out how someone I loved turned into someone I don’t even know. So far nothing else has worked. And I also can’t say I’m writing an honest version of my life here unless I do include the end of the story here. He surely has another story, probably unrecognizable in comparison, but this one is mine; it’s my story to tell. So tell my story I will……

…Except after writing the long story that came after those introductory paragraphs, I didn’t hit the publish button. I realized this time writing isn’t going to help me, isn’t going to change what’s happened and will happen. As for clarity, I just look like an idiot in this story, all the way to the end and beyond. In a story about romance and perplexities, trust and manipulation, I came out the dupe. I stayed in a situation that I predicted could only end up the way it did: one person's heart broken, another person confused and maybe angry or hurt, and somebody else perfectly content and purring. Guess which one I am.

So I don’t think I’m going to post that story, even though it would be riveting to anyone who relishes my humiliation and heartbreak. I’ll just return you to your regularly scheduled programming and write posts about sex and recipes and other funny things that happen in my life. I’ll try to come up with something like that tomorrow or the next day. Maybe something funny will happen at karaoke tonight or tomorrow night when I go for my first bike ride since my little tumble. I’ll let you know. Thanks for reading.

9 comments:

  1. He's an absolute asshole. You'd learn to hate the jerk anyway. And, he's cubby. And, he has bad breath. (I know I'm not suppose to start a sentence with "and", but I like it. There, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I suck.) You're the winner!!

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  2. Thanks for the support. I wish I had learned to hate him or even that I could believe he's an asshole. Not that I'm really a hater, but being a lover doesn't always work in my favor.

    English lesson: Starting a sentence with a conjunction is against the rules. But I do it all the time. It's called grammar B writing and it's perfectly acceptable if you know you're breaking the rule and you do it for a reason, for style.

    However, ending a sentence with a preposition is not and never was against the rules. That's a nasty bit of misinformation that even Winston Churchill wrote about <---- preposition. I have a degree in this shit and I may suck at romance, this I know.

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  3. This man has problems. AND I agree with Amy And Kristen. Hate or no hate, he has Problems.

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  4. He has one less red-headed hippie problem now. No reason to wonder if normal is crazy or crazy is normal. And he has somebody to help him with his problems and to make sure nobody like me gets too close again. He's safe from the crazy shit I brought into his life now.

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  5. I love your refreshingly raw open honesty,you inspire me!

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  6. Welcome, Vapor. And thank you. Honesty gets me in trouble and sometimes I lose big, but for some reason I just keep doing it. Glad you dropped by.

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  7. The stories we choose not to tell, the decision not to tell it, our reasons for not telling, and the power behind not telling can be as powerful as our decision to tell the story. The act of telling or not telling is part of the evolving and unfolding story.

    That said, I'm sorry you're hurting...and I know anybody that hurt you like this must be an absolute asshole with the emotional range of a teaspoon.

    Love you.

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  8. All true, Autodidacticpoet. Everything touches the story and changes it in some way....even if we don't know it. Sometimes telling the story to myself is hard enough...or even too hard. Sometimes a story should be told to only one person and it can't be told.

    Emotional range of a teaspoon made me laugh. And reminded me I want to write about my new tiny measuring spoons that just came in the mail and the drug dealer down the street.

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