I hate moving. Hate packing, hate lugging boxes (or, in this case, trash bags) up and down stairs. Hate the people at U-Haul. Hate being in a new place.
The move itself went fine. The only major problem was my box spring (box springs? Is it plural?) which is too big to fit up the stairs. My lovely, wonderful volunteers struggled with it for quite a while, while I paced outside and swore under my breath, before we finally gave up on it. It's still in the lobby of the building, propped against the wall, where it will remain until the people from the furniture store come and get it on Friday. They're exchanging it for a split box spring, and throwing in a bed frame, which should make things easier. Meantime, I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor, right where the cat can leap off the windowsill directly onto my head. She's not happy about the move either -- my new roommate has two cats, and Smoke is pissed as hell about it. Zoe, the more aggressive of the two, keeps trying to get into Smoke's face. I think he thinks they're playing, but Smoke's having none of it. Tucker, the other cat, really just wants to be friends, and spends hours sitting just outside my door looking sad, because Smoke hisses and growls at him. I left my door open when I went to work today -- if they fight, they fight. They'll need to hash it out sooner or later. I'm hoping for sooner -- I don't like keeping Smoke cooped up in my room all night, because she gets bored and restless and wakes me up. I don't want to keep her if it means she's always crabby and on edge, so I do have a home lined up for her, if she doesn't adjust.
My mom also got a flat tire on our way to return the U-Haul van. She pulled over to let my brother (who was following us, driving the van) catch up, and as she pulled out, she hit the curb and tore a chunk out of her tire. My poor brother got to change it, after lugging all the heavy stuff up two flights of stairs, and wrestling with the stupid box spring.
I am fairly settled in -- I like my roommate, Beth, very much. She's friendly and funny, and very easy to talk to. Her boyfriend lives there, too, for the time being, but he's very quiet and unobtrusive. I try to ignore the lovey affectionate stuff that goes on, but it's hard -- I generally just go to my room and hug the cat. I thought I was prepared, see -- Sunday morning Beth and I went to Bradlee's to buy house stuff. We were having fun, talking, laughing, and on the way home, we drove past Barry, walking down the street holding hands with his girlfriend. I knew she had been there with him Saturday night, after I moved out. I thought I could handle it -- I kept telling myself "You only live four blocks from him. You're bound to run into him from time to time. And you know he's still seeing someone else. Deal with it." And when I saw them, I thought I was okay, until I tried to get out of the car. My knees wouldn't seem to work. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't get my keys out of my bag. Beth kept asking if I was okay, and saying she was sorry...
I don't understand how, after four years with someone, four good years, by and large, how you could just replace that person so quickly. How you could just move on, without seeming to feel anything, any grief, and pain. I don't want to get back together with him, ever. So it's a little easier for me. But I find it hard to believe that our relationship meant anything at all, if he can just replace me so quickly.
Enough wallowing, at least for now. Thank you for all the book recommendations. I'm making a list, which I'm sure I'll be plowing through over the next few months. I went to Barnes & Noble with Lee yesterday, after an unsuccessful attempt to see Gladiator. (We forgot it was a holiday, and all the matinee showings were sold out) and bought four books -- Mary Stewart's Merlin saga. My mom owns them, and both she and my brother both love them. I have never read them, though I've always meant to. So I figured, what better time to pick them up?
Keep sending recommendations, though -- the list keeps growing, and that's a good thing. Plus it's cool to find out what kind of books you guys like to read.
stee just rocks. I think he somehow got into my head, took everything that I was thinking about, and put it into this entry. Every time I think of the future, I remember that Barry won't be in it. Every night, when I go to bed, I realize that he won't be beside me, his breathing won't lull me to sleep anymore. When something weird or funny or bad happens at work, my first reaction won't be to call him. There will be no one to bring goofy little presents to. I will never touch his skin again. He will never sneak up on me and kiss me, in that way that always made me knees weak. He will never be there again, ever. Even if we were to be friends, like stee said, it would never be the same.
I'm almost all packed to move. The cat is freaking out, climbing into all the boxes and pulling things out, as if to say "What are you DOING? Stop!" I packed last night in a frenzy of energy -- if I let myself think too much about it, I lose any will to do it at all, and end up on the couch crying. So in less than an hour, I packed almost everything.
I'm absolutely terrified of starting over. I don't know when I'll ever have my own place again -- I can't possibly afford to live on my own in or near Boston. I'm fearful of the future, when there will be no one to turn to when I need help with some mundane problem. I don't know how I'll fill my time -- at this point, I'm planning on joining the YMCA, which is right on my route home from work. It will keep me busy, and possibly give me some chance of looking halfway decent. I am resisting calling all my friends every single night, because the last thing I want to do is become a ball-and-chain to them. I want them to stay my friends, not resent me, or feel obligated to hang out with me. I don't want to be needy.
I like my new roommate very much, and I'm sure we'll end up being good friends. But it's not the same, by a long shot.
So I need diversions. Send me book recommendations -- I need something relatively mindless, yet entertaining. Something I don't have to think about too much, that I can just lose myself in. So send me any recommendations you have -- oh, and NO ROMANCES.
I've been packing over the past week, getting ready to move out. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.
There's a little, pathetic pile of boxes and suitcases in the middle of the dining room floor. Most of my personal things are packed, and all I really have left to do is sort out what kitchen stuff I'm taking, and that's it. I went through the wedding photos, taking the ones I wanted to keep. I sorted through the shoebox of little, silly love tokens, and took the (very few) I wanted. Most of the little notes in the box were written by me, and it was funny, in a sad way, to read through them and see how eager I was to please -- how I would say anything, gloss over any problem, just to make things okay. I grew up like that, with a father who was never satisfied with me. Everything I did was wrong -- I was unattractive, fat, clumsy, and not very bright. My college choice was all wrong. My dreams were all silly and childish.
I've been told -- repeatedly -- that women tend to go for men who remind them of their fathers. I think I proved the point pretty well with this relationship.
It's not that I'm not sad -- at this point, I'm heartbroken. We had a good little life together. It was stable, comfortable, and happy. Barry keeps telling me "A lack of love was never the problem with us." I've just... made peace with it, I guess. I'm not angry anymore. I can get through the day without crying. I can talk to Barry, on a very superficial level, without wanting to punch him. It'll hit me much harder once I've moved out, and I don't have the chance to see him every day. I don't want to move -- I hate giving up the level of security and privacy I have now. I'm a creature of habit -- I intensely dislike change. And this is changing everything. It's changing me.
This entry doesn't make a whole lot of sense... sorry.
I'm in a better mood today. In fact, I'm in a great mood. I don't really know why -- only one reason I can think of, and I'll get to that in a minute.
I had a fairly good weekend. Went to hang out with a recently-divorced friend Friday night, and she dyed my hair red -- "A nice sassy color will help! I promise!" -- and I really do like it. Playing with hair dye is always a fun thing. We talked, drank a lot of wine, smoked too many cigarettes, and generally had fun. She makes me laugh, which is all I really want people to do right now.
Saturday night I spent some time with Patrick and Lee, watching TV and eating far too much Chinese food. Lee's graduation from Simmons was Sunday morning, so Patrick picked me up and we went to watch her get her degree. The ceremony was mercifully short, which was good as it was damn cold, and wearing a skirt outdoors on a cold day is just not fun. I am proud of Lee, though, and jealous, since it will be another three years before I'm up on that stage.
Sunday afternoon was spent packing. I went through a dresser we use for storage, and found the shoebox full of silly little cards. love notes, and photos Barry and I have collected over the past four years. Back when we worked together and weren't allowed to let anyone know we were dating, we wrote reams of love notes to each other. The box is full of little scraps of different-colored paper, some with just a few silly words, some filled with longer notes dealing with some problem or fight. It hurt going through them -- I could remember writing most of them, and remembered the hope and anticipation I felt for the future with him. And I'm wondering where all that went -- I didn't lose it, really, but he has, and I still don't know why. I kept some pictures, and a couple of the notes, but the rest I left behind. He may well throw it all out, but I hope he at least glances through it.
So now I have a pathetic little pile of boxes, suitcases and trash bags in the dining room. All of my stuff, which has intermingled with his for four years, looks pitiful just sitting there. And he still couldn't understand why I was sad yesterday, and why I can't be his friend anymore, whether I want to or not.
One week until I move out. I'll file the papers tomorrow -- sudden, yes, but that's the way it has to be.
Last night I spoke to an old friend -- my oldest friend, I think. He was my college boyfriend, and my first true love. Luckily, we stayed friends after the breakup -- probably better friends than we were when we were dating. I had lost touch with him, since Barry was very jealous of him. I got his number from his mother, and he called last night. We talked for an hour -- and it was like the distance and the time apart didn't exist. I missed him -- I'm not giving a name or any other detail unless he tells me I can, but I feel much better for having talked to him.
It's all the same right now -- arguments, recriminations, accusations, tearful apologies, pointless heart-to-heart talks... I don't want to talk about it anymore. So here is a diversion. Beth has a forum topic on random childhood memories running, and as I was reading through it, I realized that almost all of my childhood memories revolve around getting hurt or getting in trouble, or some combination of the two.
My earliest memory, I think, is of whacking my big brother over the head with a toy pinball machine. I think I was about two. (Right, Mom?) He took some Legos away from me. Don't mess with me and my Legos, man.
My other earliest memory is of falling down the stairs with my Weebil house. I have no idea how old I was. I don't remember it hurting, but I do remember having screaming hysterics when I hit the bottom.
When I was three or so, I heard the big kids using a neat new word at the playground. I went home and started saying it all over the place. "Shit! Shit shit shit!" My mom told me it was time for my nap, and I said "Shit, Mom!" She washed my mouth out with soap, and I swallowed the soapy water, if I remember correctly.
My mom used to find our bikes wherever we had left them after we fell off by following the trail of blood, or so she says. When I was in grade school, we lived in a tiny town -- two blocks. There were three other kids in my class. It made for excellent bike-races. One of the houses on the edge of town had a big, mean dog. It was always chained up, but we had no doubts that, if it were to get loose, it would eat us in one bite. One afternoon, the dog got loose and chased us on our bikes. I turned a corner too fast, hit a patch of gravel, and wiped out spectacularly. Scraped the skin completely off my leg in three places. Bled like crazy. The dog ran up and licked my cheek and wagged. My brother carried me home, and I spent the next few days on the couch because I couldn't really bend my knee.
Around the same time, my brother and I discovered a neat new trick: we had two old, brown, nylon sleeping bags. We also had carpeted stairs. Shag carpet, and a long staircase. My brother dared me to slide down the stairs in the sleeping bag. The front door to the house was right at the bottom of the stairs, and my mom's room was right next to the door. My mom heard a "Whoosh," and looked out of her room just in time to see a brownish blur go streaking down the stairs and crash into the door. If the door had been open, I think I would have slid right into the next town. That was way too much fun; I want to do it again.
I had more than my share of clumsiness -- all of the photos of me as a child show plenty of scrapes and bruises. There's one, taken after summer camp, where I look like a war orphan -- my hair was hacked off, because one of my friends had decided it would be fun to play barber. She cut my hair off so short I had to have a boy's haircut. (Very traumatic -- when people would ask my mom how old her son was, I would bite them, or kick them in the shins.) I had a blazing sunburn. My two front teeth and I think one bottom tooth were all missing, and I had a cast on my arm. (Some big kid at camp stepped on my wrist and broke it.) I was a mess.
I never outgrew the clumsiness -- yesterday I managed to knock over and entire cart of books just by resting my hand on it. (Made a lovely crash in the quiet library, heh heh...) So far today I have dropped books on my fingers, closed a cabinet door on my hand, banged my hip into the side of the desk, and cracked my knee on the printe shelf hard enough to leave a bruise, and tripped over my own feet three times. And it's only 11 o'clock. Last year I managed to dislocate my knee bending down to pick up my keys, which I had dropped on the stairs at home. I stooped down, my kneecap popped out, and I fell backward down the stairs.
I go through a lot of Band-Aids and ice packs. I have a half-dozen Ace bandages lying around the house. I am an accident waiting to happen, I tell you.
I have a place to live.
It's a good thing, really, but I feel terrible. It's not home. The woman I'll be rooming with is very nice, and I can see the two of us getting along very well. She has two cats, and I'll have a nice big room. But I walked home after looking at it thinking about the happy, comfortable place I'm leaving. We have only lived in the new apartment for a little over two weeks, but it already felt like home to me. Barry was constantly talking about how it would be our little nest for a long time, and how we would set it up just the way we wanted it. I'll settle in fine at the new place, physically, but... I wonder when I'll stop watching the clock in the evenings, thinking "Almost time for Barry to get home." He won't be there watching TV with me. He won't be there to come up behind me and hug me while I'm washing dishes. He won't be there to call me during the day, just to say hello.
I got the divorce papers in the mail yesterday. I was the one who'd called to request them, so I was expecting them. But still... I sat on the couch looking at them and crying all evening. A bit part of me was hoping that he would come home, look at them, and say "Why don't we just try a seperation." But I know that isn't going to happen. He has made it abundantly clear that that can't happen. He's leaving me in a mess of confusion -- in one breath, he says he loves me and wants to be with me, and in the next he says someone else makes him happy. He tells me he doesn't love her, then calls her and says he does. He says it's all due to his problems, then blames it all on me.
I know I'm likely driving my friends crazy with evening phone calls -- I'm all right during the day, at work, because I'm busy. At night, I sit and my thoughts catch up to me. And I'm probably going to drive all of you nuts too, talking about this. Sorry.
Thank you to everyone who has sent supportive e-mails over the past week. They really do help, more than you know. I've saved them, and I'll be re-reading them many times over the next few weeks, I'm sure.
I'm feeling better today. Last night I looked at an utterly horrible apartment -- dirty, dark, in a terrible neighborhood, with a very unfriendly roommate. I kept seeing it in comparison to the beautiful, bright, sunny place I live in now -- the place that Barry said would really be a home for us, where I thought I would be for many years to come. I couldn't speak much while looking at the apartment, because I knew if I wasn't careful, I'd break down and cry right there. As it was, I cried all the way back to the subway, and all the way home. By the time I reached my house, I thought I had a plan.
I decided to move back to Vermont. Quit my job, quit school, pack up, and go. My family is there, and I need them. I could close this part of my life, and start over fresh. last night it seemed like the best idea in the world. This morning, well... I don't want to run away. I don't want to make decisions based on emotions. I do like my job, and while school tends to bore my socks off, I want to finish. But not knowing where I'll be living is a very scary thing, and I'm not emotionally equipped to handle any more very scary things right now. So I called my mom and asked her if i could move home. She said yes, of course -- that's her job, after all. Then I called a friend and talked to her for a good long time. Barry was being cold and as nasty as possible to me, so I just sat outside and talked on the phone all evening. Went to bed, cried all night -- I can hear Barry breathing in the other room, and it tears me apart. I hate what he's done. I hate him, for ruining the best relationship I've ever had. he was my best friend, and he betrayed me in a way he promised he never would. But at the same time, lying there in the dark, hearing him breathe, part of me wants to creep in and lie down next to him, and just hold him. It feels like I've been kicked in the stomach -- an ache that won't stop. Or like a piece of me is missing, and there's a ragged, painful hole that I can't fill. he was so much a part of me -- and now he's turned away to someone else, and even though he keeps telling me it wasn't my fault, that he has problems that he needs professional help to deal with, it still is tearing me apart inside. I'm trying to keep a brave face on -- I write these entries on my breaks at work, usually, so I can't break down. I save it for the nights, when I can break down alone.
So. As of this morning, going back to Vermont was the plan. Then I got a phone call. My landlord is a very nice guy, and he happens to own another house, about four blocks from where I live now. he remembered that one of the tenants in that house, a woman about my age, wanted a roommate. He called her, and she called me yesterday. The apartment sounds great, and I know I'd love to continue to rent from Scott. But yesterday, she had told me that she was planning to move out in a few months. I couldn't afford the place alone, so i said I didn't think it would work out. She called again this morning, and told me that if she were to move out, she would stay until I had either found a new roommate, or had a new place of my own. She is very nice -- both times she's called we've talked like old friends. I told her why I'm moving, and she was supportive, even though she hasn't actually met me. She seems to really want me to move in, so I'm going to go look tonight. if it's nice -- and I'm sure it is -- and Scott says it's okay for me to find a new roommate when she moves, I'll go for it. Only problem is, I'd be living four blocks from Barry, which would hurt. But I doubt our paths would cross much. And deep down, I still want to be his friend, to a degree. I still do love him, even though I hate what he's done. He was my best friend for four years, and I can't just forget that. But oh, it hurts. I'm trying to take the pain a little at a time. I'm trying to not feel anything, to be utterly without emotion, because even a little hurts too much. I'm going to get some counselling myself, because I need to deal with this. I just don't really know how to do it.
So I found out he was cheating on me. Walked in with my mom early Saturday morning, and found him in bed with his girlfriend. He's pretty much been lying to me all along, and he's still doing it now. I can't write any more about that -- I can't think about it. It hurts more than I thought anything could hurt, ever.
The hellish thing is, I have to live there with him until I find another apartment. He is expecting that we can just be normal and friendly to each other, and can't (or won't) understand that I can't do that. The sooner I move out, the better. I'm looking at a place tonight, so send me happy thoughts that it works out. I just want to move out. It hasn't hit me yet -- I'm not allowing myself to feel anything, because any emotion would hurt too much. I'm having trouble sleeping, and I can't really eat much.
When I move is when it will hit me. I hate being alone. And right now I feel utterly, completely alone. I won't have anyone to talk to at night. I won't have anyone to be there with me, to just spend time and relax with. It'll just be me, and he already has someone else.
I don't know where to begin, here.
Yesterday Barry told me he wants a divorce. I had no idea he was unhappy, he never told me. He's blaming me, but at the same time telling me that there was nothing I could have done to change things, nothing I should have done that I didn't.
I left, got on a bus, came home to Vermont. I'll be here for a week. I have to find somewhere to live -- our new landlord won't let just one of us stay in the apartment. I'll have to find a place with roommates. I can't afford to live on my own.
I'm trying to be practical here, but I haven't been able to stop crying since yesterday. I don't know how I'm going to get through this.
I'm sooooo relaxed right now.
Barry's off watching "Gladiator" with his guy friends from work -- he'll probably be home late. I was feeling a little sulky at first; all of my friends are either working or have other plans. So I got me a bottle of wine and a Toblerone, rented "Elizabeth," and now I'm quite content to be here on the couch, watching TV and writing. I have my cat curled up next to me, snoozing. I just came in from playing fetch with the dogs and talking to the landlord and our upstairs neighbor. It's warm out, and there's a soft breeze blowing in the windows. We're close enough to the ocean that you can just barely smell the sea air.
Tomorrow will be busy enough -- Smoke has a vet appointment, and I'll have to wrestle her into her carrier and take her on the bus. (I am a lax and awful cat owner. She hasn't been to the vet in over three years. Feel free to scold.)
So now I'm glad I have the evening to myself. I'm glad Barry's out having fun, and I'll be happy to see him when he gets home. But right now, it's so quiet, and I'm very, very relaxed.
So yesterday was Day of the Animals. When I got home from work, I looked for the cat in her usual spot on the windowsill (doing her little Happy Dance). No cat. I went in and opened the door -- no cat prancing around wanting to be patted and fed. Hmm. Heard a pitiful mewing, went to investigate... and found her stuck on top of the kitchen cabinets. Now, for a normal cat, getting up there wouldn't be unusual. I, however, have the world's clumsiest cat. When she tries to jump from the floor to the bed, she misses. Getting onto the windowsills tends to take her a couple of tries, because she falls off. So the jump from the counter to the top of the cabinet was pretty impressive, for her. Of course, a normal cat would have been able to jump back down easily, instead of haing to be rescued by me, standing on a phone book on top of a kitchen chair...
So I rescued Smoke, who was very grateful and happy, and fed her, and then went to watch the news. As I sat down, I heard screaming and yelling from outside. I thought at first it was kids playing, but after a minute, it got so loud and hysterical that I realized something was really wrong. I looked out the window, and saw a woman on the ground, trying to protect her toddler and her very small dog from a very large brown dog, which had broken down a chain-link fence and was attacking them. Several people were already out there trying to help -- one man had a fence post and was whacking the big dog with it, and others were trying to pull the little dog away, with no luck. I ran out to see what I could do -- by the time I got there, the big dog had been chased back into it's yard, and the owner was there. The man who'd had the fence post (who turned out to be my very nice neighbor) had been pretty badly bitten. The little dog actually seemed okay, given the fact that the larger dog had been shaking it back and forth like a rag doll. It had a deep bite on one hind leg, but was wagging its tail and looking alert. The woman and the little girl were okay -- slightly scraped and very shaken, but unhurt. The woman asked me to take her daughter so she could check the dog and call the police on her cell phone. I was worried the little girl was going to start screaming when I picked her up (she didn't know me, after all) but she put her arms around my neck and her head on my shoulder and just snuggled up. She was very good -- no crying, not even when the paramedics cleaned the scrape on her leg. From what people have told me (and what I overheard the police saying) this dog gets loose and attacks people at least once a month. The owner, who was very upset, said she was going to have it put to sleep, because she had tried everything to control it, and it still got loose. I wouldn't ordinarily favor putting a dog down because of bad behavior, but a vicious dog, well...
So I met some new neighbors, and they were all really nice. (The poor woman who got atacked had only just moved to the neighborhood too.) After all the excitement died down, I went into our backyard and played with more dogs -- the landlord's yellow lab and the third-floor tenant's dalmation. Very happy, friendly, slobbery dogs, playing fetch.
It's like living in a zoo around here, I tell you...
I bit my tongue at lunch today. It really hurts. And now I'm lisping because it's really painful when I talk.
The move went really well -- better than I had expected. I discovered on Friday that Bell Atlantic had gotten overzealous and turned our phone off a day early, so we were without phone or e-mail all day. Saturday morning, I met Barry's mother and stepfather at the U-Haul place (Barry's stepfather was driving the truck, since Barry doesn't have a license and there was no way I was going to drive that thing). After waiting in line for seventeen years (well, twenty minutes -- it just felt like seventeen years) we finally got a clerk's attention. Twenty minutes after that, we were on our way back to load up. I put the cat into the bedroom and shut the door, and she howled like she was being tortured until we were finished and it was time to get her into the kitty carrier. She sobbed all the way to the new place, where we put her in the back bedroom and shut the door. After that, she was fine. I sat in the room with her for a while (while the men-folk did the unloading of heavy objects) and she was okay, sniffing around. She had a brief fright when the landlord's big, goofy, friendly yellow lab (Buddy) came and woofed in the window at her, but other than that, she was fine. She hid in the closet for an hour or so until she realized that no one was paying attention to her, so she came out. She loves the new place, as do we. It's nice and bright, with lots of windows for her to look out. Barry even heard a woodpecker Sunday morning.
Our landlord is way too nice. Too nice for words. He's been so helpful. He's even giving us an old rowing machine that was in his basement.
We're pretty well settled in already -- I keep looking for light switches in the wrong places, and turning the wrong way in the kitchen to try to go to the sink, and I haven't been sleeping well. The noises are all different, and the shadows are all unfamiliar. Plus we have a new bed, and that feels different. The cat waits until I have fallen asleep, and then jumps on my head.
I didn't want to come to work at all today, the new place is so nice. It's very colorful -- the living room is a mint green, with white trim. The doorway between the living room and dining room is flanked by waist-high walls, with white columns going up to the ceiling. The dining room is a sort of pink/peach color, with white and light brown trim (That looks a lot better than it sounds, here.) The bathroom is a very pale taupe, the hallway between the bedroom and bathroom is sky blue, and the kitchen is off-white and yellow. From the bed, you can look through the dining room into the living room and out the window.
I'm just loving this place already. The neighborhood is nice and quiet, with lots of dogs and cats and, judging from the toy-filled yards, kids.
The only real drawback is, there's no grocery store close enough to walk to. (There are, however, a McDonald's, a Dunkin' Donuts, two pizza places, a deli, and a chinese place three blocks away. Was that bad grammar? Sorry.) We did the online grocery shopping thing, which took forever (our internet connection at home now is way too slow) and our order was slightly off -- they sent us some pasta sauce we didn't order, a can of dog food instead of cat food, and they didn't send my ice cream. No ice cream! They didn't charge me for it, but still. I wanted ice cream, dammit.
And I didn't manage to quit smoking ('cause I got ONE e-mail giving encouragement. ONE. I am sulking. And plugging for e-mail, shamelessly.) I'm still planning to. I think that free rowing machine will help with that.