November 17, 2009 | Filed under: Boys Are Dumb, I Write About My Feelings

This is when it’s the worst: two beers after work and I’m relaxed enough to want some affection, some attention, a connection to someone who wants to know how my day was and to tell me stories about his in return. Instead, I’m on my way home to an empty house where the only thing awaiting my attention is the dishwasher that needs to be unloaded.

* * * * *

We broke up two months ago. Feels like six. Or yesterday. Or a lifetime ago.

In my head, I know it was the right thing. To my family, I characterized it as “square peg, round hole,” which is accurate, but gives short shrift to the emotional intricacies of it all.

I feel sadness, to be sure, mixed in with a dash of anger and a hearty scoop of frustration/annoyance. And there’s this weird achy hangover sort of thing that I’ve never felt before. I think it’s called regret. For someone with a “no regrets” approach to life, this merely leads to more anger and more annoyance.

If I could take it all back, I would. Undo, somehow, the last four and a half years, gather it all up and shove it into the Pandora’s box from whence it came, never to see the light of day. Yep, in a heartbeat.

I hate that that’s true.

* * * * *

This is when it’s the worst: in the middle of an average day, when I’m listening to a series of boring speakers and the next one starts and I wait on the edge of my seat, counting the minutes until the panelist says those two words that he and I both know are coming. FLAGSHIP ISSUE. I look around the full room and realize that there’s no one to share the joke with.

* * * * *

Believing in me is easy. Believing in him wasn’t that hard, either. But at the end of the day, after all that was discussed, all that was promised, all that was intimated … none of it came to fruition. It was a man behind a curtain, nothing more.

I believed in us. And I was wrong, oh so wrong. That’s going to take some getting used to.

* * * * *

I miss him, sort of. More accurately, I miss us. I miss the good parts and the spectacular parts and even some of the so-so parts. I really miss the components of a stable, workable relationship that we never had.

At the risk of sounding like a song from middle school, there’s a hole in my heart that can only be filled by him. And it never will be. I know this; I’m not holding out for some sort of magical twist of fate that will change that. Nor do I expect that anyone else, ever, no matter how wonderful he/she is will ever fill precisely that space. All I’m hoping for at this point is that I can turn the vase and have the blemish face the wall, thereby presenting a perfect face to the rest of the room. Flaunt the good, disguise the ugly. It’s the American way, at least according to Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

* * * * *

He had a birthday recently, and for the first time in three years I wasn’t there to take him to dinner at his current favorite restaurant. I wonder which one it is. I wonder who was there instead. And I know that no matter who it was, or is in the future, she’ll never be able to replace me.

* * * * *

This is when it’s the worst: crawling into an empty bed, wondering if I’ll ever feel that kind of closeness again, and holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, next time it will be for real.

June 4, 2009 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings, The Fam

I’m learning my way around all of the machines in the room, which one does what. Which alarm beeping is associated with which machine. How to read information off of the displays and track what’s going on or ask questions when things look different.  Dr. Google and I have also become good friends. I’ll tell you next week if they end up following my recommended course of treatment, given my vast knowledge of the workings of the heart and current innovations in cardiovascular surgery. I mean, I did take AP Biology in high school. Fifteen years ago.

(Oh My God.  Fifteen years ago?!?!)

(Also: our night nurse remembered my brother from high school — he was a year ahead of her.  Hello, small town!)

* * * * *

She may be Irish, but my mother has a stiff upper lip that would put Queen Elizabeth II to shame. I, on the other hand, walked in Wednesday afternoon and immediately burst into tears. Awesome.

* * * * *

My sister is the (self-appointed) communicator, especially when it comes to stuff like this, but Steve is the entertainer.  Therefore, I put him on the task of updating Dad’s website with today’s news, including this little gem:

He could, however, use a comb–he has that “I’ve just finished mowing the back yard and am ready for an MGD” look about his hair.

* * * * *

We’re waiting. There’s a lot of waiting that goes on in the ICU, I’ve learned. Normally this amount of waiting — and for what, exactly, isn’t really knowable — would drive me batty. Or I’d take the opportunity to worry, endlessly, because at least that’s doing something. Instead, I’m chilling.

This is no vacation, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no hurry, no deadline to meet. Sitting in a dark room listening to the rhythmic sounds of the ventilator and the compression pack machine and the fan they brought in to keep Dad cool and comfortable, there’s just no need to worry. It’s like a week of continuous moments of zen. (Though I’m certainly hoping this stage doesn’t last all week.) We are focusing on calming, soothing, healing vibes here. Maybe the nurses will let us bring in some patchouli incense. I should ask…

June 3, 2009 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings, The Fam

I was awake for ten minutes before I started crying. I think that warrants some kind of medal.

My dad had a heart attack yesterday. I”m getting on a plane in a few hours to fly back to Wisconsin.  I booked a return flight so far into the future that I’ll run out of vacation days and sick days if I actually stay there that long, but I have absolutely no idea how long it’s going to take, and I was on the brink of a meltdown staring at Northwest’s website trying to figure it out.

On top of the logistical challenge of being 700 miles away and therefore having to get on a plane, rather than jump in the car and drive home, is the extra tasty mega-scoop of Catholic guilt because I, being an asshole who’s too much of a bigshot to check her personal cell for messages or have her siblings’ numbers programmed into her work phone, was completely in the dark for most of the day yesterday.  (The first message is from my mother at 6:15 AM. Nobody heard from me until 4:30 PM when I saw a text on my BlackBerry from a number I vaguely recognized as my brother’s saying to call ASAP.  So I did. I then realized that some of the missed calls shown on my phone were from my sister. Nice.)

I don’t really know what’s going on, as far as a diagnosis goes.  Neither do the doctors.  Dad is in ICU in a stable, intentionally-sedated state.  Later today they’ll bring him out of the sedation and make decisions about what happens next. I’m trying to focus on the likely “nexts,” like another surgery, but I cannot rule out the possibility that he could die. All of this is not fair, not fair, not fair. We just talked last weekend about his last visit to the cardiologist, wherein he was declared 100% recovered from the triple bypass surgery he had last fall (without a heart attack), all the numbers look good, come back and see me in a year.

Or, have a heart attack next week. That’s cool, too.

I was not prepared for this. Duh, I know, nobody ever is, but having spent the last 18 years knowing he would likely have a heart attack some day, the surgery-sans-heart attack and all-clear from the doctor really lulled me into thinking I wouldn’t have to deal with this particular event for oh, ten or fifteen years. Or never. I was really OK with never. Not fair.

February 19, 2009 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings, People I Like Even More Than My Job

Normally I take the occasion of Valentine’s Day to write a snarky piece about love lost. Or hours of my life lost on dates with tragically, hysterically, so totally the wrong people for me. It’s a little harder to bring the funny this year, so I’m going to go the mushy route instead.

“Thus endeth the boy,” I e-mailed Sean, back in December. He’d heard weekly, if not daily, reports of our ups and downs and moments of sheer idiocy. It just seemed right that he’d be the first to know things were over. Not a minute later, just long enough for my e-mail to hit the server and be fired off to his BlackBerry, did my phone ring. Not a text, not an e-mail in kind, a phone call: ”I’m sorry, babe.  He’s a moron.”

Never in my life has anyone appeared so sexy.

(Yes, Sean’s quite a catch.  His girlfriend concurs with this assessment.)

Thanks to Sean and Pia and Lori and K and Chrystal and everyone who bears with me as I rant about stupid boys and the stupid things they do. As long as I’ve got you in my life, I really don’t need anyone else.

February 15, 2009 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings

I’ve been a pretty awful person lately, culminating in an evening recently wherein I set fire to the bridge over the canyon that leads from not-happening relationship to workable friendship. Then I stepped back from the ledge, so as to get a running start as I hurled all that remained of our relationship/friendship over the edge and into the chasm.

Now, I want to punch myself in the face. And probably one or two other people (rightfully) share that desire.

I keep trying to focus on the good things, that I’m employed, that my home is not in foreclosure, which is more than a lot of Americans can say these days, or the woman I saw last night, obviously dressed up for her Valentine’s Day date, crying on the phone to her friend that her boyfriend had just broken up with her. Yes, clearly, I should stop my whining already. But the fact is, I am not in a good place right now and it is up to me to fix it. I just don’t know how.