Avoiding My Empty Apartment

I know that it’s been a while. I somehow felt like what I had to say wasn’t good enough anymore. The truth is, I no longer know what to say. Not that I knew what to say in the first place, but I was bursting forth with so much emotion that when it spewed onto the page I wanted to share it and feel understood for a while.

I like it more when I’m writing. I feel closer to the world and those around me. Even if no one tells me they’ve read it or I ever know if anything I’ve written has been read, I feel like I’ve offered something of myself to the world at large and it makes me feel like I’m a piece of the world.

I’ve been so desperate for connection lately.

We talked yesterday. And it was nothing. Sometimes I think I don’t even like her. I mean, I’m so in love with her. I want to be around her all the time. She’s still my everything in this world, and yet, I get so angry and disappointed by her. How dare she not take the gender-fucking poster I offered. How dare she not agree with me about the injustice of the world.

After the Tegan and Sara concert, we talked about coming out. She said that all the bullshit was worth it when we were in the relationship. It was so clear to her that now that she’s not in a same-sex relationship, she’s not being oppressed by the world. Well, maybe she can pretend and lie and enjoys passing as the straight, downhome girl next door, but the world is still oppressing her, and it’s sure as hell oppressing me. She pretends that there’s no injustice in our being denied the right to marriage because she doesn’t have anyone in mind for marriage.

I don’t get it. It’s like she still never considered herself a part of the queer world. She had me. I was her girlfriend. But apparently not her girlfriend enough to truly believe that she loved a woman and was a lover of women.

It just feels like one more big “Fuck you” when she doesn’t fight for social justice. I take it so personally because it’s Her and she should be fighting for my rights, and she should recognize and acknowledge that these are her rights too. How can she be so non-chalant about it?

I miss her. I miss holding her. I miss being held by her. I miss kissing her neck. I miss telling her that she has the most kissable neck in the whole world, and that I’ve told her that from the beginning. I miss having history. I miss having someone to go to parties with. I miss planning dinner with someone. I miss deciding what we’re going to do that night. Now, it’s deciding if I’ll be able to find anyone to hang out with. I have friends. I love my friends. But I don’t have a best friend. Not one that’s here anyway. Not one that I know I’ll get to hang out with and see and talk to and get updates about. I miss having someone to go shopping with. I miss having someone there to laugh at my jokes. I don’t make jokes when I’m by myself. Does anyone? I miss laughing with her. I miss watching her laugh so hard that she jerks forwards and backwards and starts crying. I miss her force field elbows. I miss paying tolls. I miss charging tolls. I miss dancing with her and hearing her voice singing softly in my ear. I miss watching her sing in the car.

I miss having undoubted faith in the world. I no longer believe all things will be right. I miss her beauty. Can you imagine what it’s like to get to see the most beautiful being in the entire world every single day, and now she’s gone? My life is poorer because I am without her beauty. I miss telling her my stories. I miss getting mad at her. I miss the orange streaks in the hair around her face.

I miss coming up with how I’m going to make her smile and feel special. I miss having someone to think about. I miss waiting to do something until I can do it with her.

What if Charlotte’s right? What if you get over love in exactly half the time of the relationship? Do I really have another year and a half before I can feel okay on my own? Or what if all the other movies and tv shows are right, and I never get over my first love, and I’ll forever hold a place for her? Even though she’s wrong, even though I needed more, even though so many reasons that I know now it’s right for us to not be together, what if I always compare the next person to her? What if no one can ever live up to her? What if I can never trust again?

All I’m doing is asking the same questions over and over and writing out the memories that happen to be crossing my mind at this moment. I’m going to see her on Wednesday. She’s giving me a ride to the airport. Then I’ll see her again on Sunday night when she picks me up.

Even though she wasn’t there for me the way I needed for her to be, I had the allusion. Now, I’ll be back from a family trip. I’ll be back from the pain and suffering and self hatred and facing old baggage that’s usually hidden away; the walls that have been built up in my time out there will come crashing down out of pure exhaustion, and then I’ll see her. I’ll see her and then I’ll drive two hours home to an empty bed. I won’t have the pain of her falling asleep as I cry softly trying to explain the trip, but I will have the pain of being alone. At least when she was there I could pretend she cared. I could easily convince myself that I wasn’t alone and I was understood and I’d be okay again. I don’t know how to do that in an empty bed in an empty apartment.

Lately, I’ve just felt tired.