Life, in a Nutshell.

I feel better today than I’ve felt in ages. And that’s why I’m finally back here writing, because when you come back after three months, it’s no fun if all you have to say is “I like, totally want to die.” The entire winter has been one long blah, but today? My god. I feel incredible.

This morning I woke up and decided that I wasn’t going to get out of bed. I spent four hours rolling around in the sheets, reading and daydreaming and staring at the ceiling ten inches above my face. Eventually I got up and went to turn on the television, but remembered that my service has been shut off. I haven’t paid my bill in three months. More on that later.

I made myself some lunch (grilled cheese, with a pickle on the side,) read my e-mail, then got dressed and went downstairs to see if my paycheck had arrived in the mail. It had, thankfully, so I left the building and started for the bank. The wind was blowing and it was colder than the internet had told me it would be, but I trudged along regardless, eager to replenish the $17 that had been lingering in my checking account all week with some badly needed new funds. I deposited the majority of my check, reserving $40 for food and other assorted sundries, and promised myself that I’d give the rest to the cable and credit card companies.

When I exited the bank, it was as if I’d walked into an alternate universe. The sun was shining, the wind had ceased, and I could swear I even heard a bird chirping off in the distance. It was Spring. I smiled for what felt like the first time in months, and walked from one block to the next, zig-zagging around my neighborhood and the next with all of my worries about the shit that my life has turned into tossed aside like last week’s trash. I passed by the hardware store and spent a few of my forty dollars on a new trip-lever for my toilet so that I could flush the damned thing without having to reach into the tank like I’ve had to do every day for the past week. I was in such a good mood that I was even able to ignore the chauvinist running the place who suggested that I go home and send my “boyfriend” to do this stuff for me. Usually, I give those guys an earful. Today I just didn’t care.

So while today has been a peachy bed of roses flying a kite while walking in the park at Disneyland, things haven’t been so splendid for the past couple of months. To begin with, I kind of walked out on my job a while back. I wasn’t planning on doing it — I’ve never done it before — but things had pretty much reached the breaking point. Every single day I ended up in tears, sitting at the reception desk stewing to myself and swearing that I was “this close — THIS CLOSE — to just walking out of here.” Nobody ever thought I’d actually do it. I never thought I’d actually do it. But it was only the second day of the week, and already I’d gotten yelled at for changing the trash bag “the wrong way” and lighting a candle “improperly.” When the “boss” tried to give me a lecture because I’d wiped my shoes in the wrong fucking direction on the doormat, I had had it. I jumped up and said, “No, you wipe your own god-damned shoes, because I quit. Good luck finding somebody else willing to put up with your bullshit for a year-and-a-half.” (I was only the second receptionist in five years who ever stayed for more than two months. The man is impossible.) And then I grabbed my hat and my coat and walked through the snow until I got home, at which point I cracked up with laughter because I’ve never lashed out at the object of my frustration before and it just felt so damned good. And then an hour later, I panicked.

Needless to say, finding yourself suddenly unemployed when you’re already living paycheck-to-paycheck and struggling with it isn’t exactly the most ideal situation in the world. I’m lucky though, in that I have the specific set of skills that temp agencies have wet dreams over. I type 90 words per minute, I’m good on the phone and I’m organized with a great memory. It’s like I was built for mindless office work. They found me a new job almost immediately and after eleven of the longest, most boring days I can remember, I started my new job. I’ve been there now for six weeks, and even though it’s a “temp” position, they’ve hinted that they’d like to hire me permanently. And really, I can’t complain. The pay is better even as a temp than what I was making before, and if I do become permanent I’ll have money that I won’t know what to do with. It’s just a matter now of catching up on everything that I’d stopped paying when I was completely broke and then unemployed. The work is easy, I’m left to do things my own way, and everybody else who works there is incredibly nice and fun. So that worked out well.

What hasn’t worked out well is Craig. All that I’ve said before, about him loving me and being mature? I was wrong. I was very, very wrong. He is vindictive and cruel and yes, evil, and I think that what hurts the most is that it took me nearly eight years to see him for who he really is. It was all a sham. His coming back, his begging, his sitting on my motherfucking couch and crying was all FAKE. It was all a ploy to try to get me to give in and want him again so that he could spit it back in my face and walk away with the upper hand. And I can’t believe that I fell for it.

And I did. Fall for it. Big time. We’ve had this on-again-off-again thing for nearly as long as I can remember, but a part of me always believed that we’d end up together, just by dint of him being the only person who’s ever been able to put up with me for more than a couple of days at a time. He promised me forever this time, and even though I knew better than to take that at face value, I thought that forever would stretch into longer than three months. Things turned upside down in January when we went to dinner one Saturday night after my show had let out. We talked about nothing for hours and he looked at me like he always used to and I remembered what it was like to fall in love with him seven days a week. He asked me to go up with him to his apartment and I said yes and then a couple of hours later, when we were sweaty and naked and tangled in the sheets with his arms around me and my head buried in his neck, I whispered to him, “I love you.” And for the first time ever in all the years that I’ve known him, he didn’t say it back. And then in the morning he fed me toast and asked me to leave because he had work to do, and I thought nothing of it because that’s just how he is sometimes. Since then, he’s shown me his hand. And it isn’t pretty.

He didn’t love me. He didn’t want me back. He wanted me for validation, for proof that even though he couldn’t get a date in high school, now he can have a harem of women revolving around him. He’s still trying to punish me for things that I don’t even remember doing when I was fifteen and sixteen. He systematically and purposefully set out to hurt me, to talk me into something that he never actually wanted and for the life of me, I can’t imagine why. I can say this, though: he’s not allowed to come back anymore. If he decides that he needs me again the next time that he’s feeling lonely, he can just go to hell because I won’t let him break me like this again. And if there ever comes a time when I lose my mind and feel like I miss him, I’m going to come back here to right this very minute and remind myself of what a giant fool I let him make of me.

I’ve always thought of myself as a trusting person. I like to seek out the good in people and believe that even when they do bad things, the bad things are done with the best of intentions. Craig has shattered that theory for me. I find myself looking at people whom I’ve known for years and wondering if I really know them at all. My view of the world has shifted from an amalgam of grey into clearly defined pockets of good and evil. People need to earn my trust now. They don’t just get it automatically anymore.

I hate him for what he’s done to me. So much for my good mood.