To live and forget you.
“You’re losing weight.”
Taken aback by the unexpected statement, I gave Kathy a quizzical look and she repeated herself. I thanked her and said I hope so, since I’ve been working out and dieting the last month. She said it shows. It was something I really needed to hear today. I’m not doing so well. Along with the euphoria that comes when I drive out to see him is the crippling depression that follows after we hug and say goodbye. Add to that the endless stress of money and not having enough of it…
I ordered Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred. It should come today. (It did.) Can’t wait to start it. I need a kick in the ass. This weekend totally took the wind out of my sails. It just needs to be warm and sunny. I can’t take much more of this weather. Six months straight of gloomy grey winter…
I woke up this morning without my alarm. An hour before my alarm was supposed to go off, no less. What? I’ve been getting up around 6 AM since Saturday morning.
Now I’ll try to file my damn state taxes. It’s been giving me problems for a few days. Hopefully I can work it out.
I am so fed up with work…I just don’t like it anymore. It’s so hard to put on a happy face. To grin and bear it when I want the old days back. The days of salesmen, customers, porters and the vampire I fell in love with. The one with the sad, sweet blue eyes that accompanied his sad, sweet tales of misfortune.
My God do I love that man. I would do anything for him. He knows that I love him and in a way I think it helps? But he has absolutely no clue what to do with the love that people give him. He’s unreliable. He can’t take care of himself and can’t stand the thought of other people depending on him so he doesn’t even try.
It makes me wonder—that even now if this was August or September I would be downtown with him, sitting in my car. I would never let my daughter do what I did! The man is a felon. A junkie. A thief. A liar. A CAR SALESMAN. And to hear the things he told me…those terrible things that made me love him more…I would lock my daughter up and throw away the key, let alone do what I have done with him. If it wasn’t for a crippling lack of self-esteem and the determination to be thin when I have sex (really, fat sex? gross) I would’ve given in to temptation that night in July.
If it wasn’t for the fear of losing him forever, of some day too soon finding out he went back to prison for good or died from an overdose (he parties as if he’s still 21, yet he’s closer to 40) I would visit him every chance I get and fuck him. To be even more insane, I would do everything to get pregnant as well. Perhaps in a year that idea will finally be so ridiculous I can laugh and be embarrassed at ever thinking it. But for now…no, it’s very serious. And that fear of knowing he won’t be around for very long keeps me away.
What wonderful choices I have…be miserable without him, push him away and keep myself closed off, or love him and give him everything he wants and still be miserable.
I can’t remember ever asking for this sorry excuse for love. Can I give it back now? I’m more than done with it.
“Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?”
“Go away and–”
He interrupted with a triumphant laugh, “Die as heroines always do, tender slaves as they are.”
“No, live and forget you”, was the unexpected reply.
–A Long Fatal Love Chase, p. 46.
Louisa May Alcott
