Everything In Between

After my bouts of depression as the sun was rising (far too slowly for my liking), I started hanging around #polyamory on IRC again, and writing on various boards and forums. I was, and still am, determined to stay awake until a reasonable hour in the evening so that I won’t keep fucking up my sleeping schedules.

Somewhere in the vicinity of ten o’clock in the morning, I heard the front door beginning to unlock. I opened it and found Danica standing on the other side holding, among her personal things, a boquet of red roses. As I stepped back to let her in, she handed them to me.

I didn’t really know what to say, and at first I was very frightened that last night’s events had completely munged communications. I said thank you, and asked why she had gotten the flowers. She told me it was Valentine’s Day and she just had to do something.

I smiled a really wide smile back at her and told her Valentine’s Day was tomorrow, but that I really appreciated the flowers anyway. Indeed, I was touched at the care and thoughtfulness she was showing, even if I was still worried that this meant I’d have to “break up all over again.”

So she put her stuff down and went to the kitchen to eat a pastry and drink her hot chocolate from the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. (It’s better and cheaper than Starbucks’.) I joined her after putting my chats on hold.

I asked how her night had been; she told me she had trouble concentrating on anything last night and couldn’t get the sound of me crying out of her head the whole time she was away. She said she had gotten to sleep at around 3 AM, which interestingly is when I was waking up. She managed something like four and a half hours of sleep before waking up and getting back here.

Our conversation was friendly and superficial for the most part, which was a pleasant reprieve from the heavy emotional battering we had both been taking. There were moments when she cried and was holding onto my leg. Specifically, after I had resolutely yet gently stated that “I genuinely think it will be better if we separate” and go our separate ways. She said that she knew leaving me to be at Randy’s last night “would strengthen [my] resolve.”

Thankfully, this time it wasn’t so bad as last night. We managed to change the subject pretty quickly and talk like friends for a little while. She told me about Randy’s web page and described one of his video animations to me. (Specifically, one titled A Self-Explanatory Statement on Accumulation #1). I pretended to listen, but I wasn’t really interested or paying that much attention. This was apparently evident to her, because she apologized for bringing it up.

After several more rounds like this, she decided that it was becoming too difficult to just sit around and that she needed to prepare for work anyway, so she got up and went to take a shower. I finished cleaning a few things up in the kitchen before coming back to my computer.

When Danica was out of the shower, we spoke intermittently as she as preparing her things and getting ready. She shared a song she wrote on a scrap of paper several weeks ago. I can’t remember the lyrics now, but its meaning was overtly sad and was obviously trying to express how unhappy she was.

If I remember correctly, the song was about seeing a station wagon for sale, and buying it. Then, because of the loneliness in the relationship, staying awake at night and watching white-noise on the TV screen alone, one night she would take the car and drive away. The song would be a postcard from some distant place back to me. There was a line about me sitting in front of the computer, which struck me especially hard; I think she felt I paid more attention to the computer than I did to her.

The first thing I said when she finished reading the song was how bewildered I felt at suddenly realizing just how non-existent any communication from her towards me had become, and why it was only now coming out. In other words, if I paid more attention to the computer it was because the computer was giving me more feedback about the state of things than she was.

I just remembered another piece about that song. The bit about watching the TV’s white noise. The line before it went “I’ve had my cable disconnected,” which is a reference to when we cut our cable service out.

Another thing that I was reminded about just now, as I was logging out of Orkut, is that as I was at my computer and she was still preparing to go she logged onto the site briefly. I had written her a testimonial a long time ago, which I had removed the other night in my anger. When she logged on to the site and saw this, she asked, “Oh, the testimonials are still gone…?” (The site had been having technical problems.) I turned to face her from my chair and said, “Oh, no…. I removed it.” When I saw the pain flash behind her eyes, I added “I did it the other night, when I was still angry.” She nodded slowly and gulped, and said she understood that it was “[mine] to give and [mine] to retract” if I wanted. (Now, as I shut down my computers, I don’t know how I feel about doing that.)

Soon, she was ready to go. I was writing up another email on my computer, but I still noticed that she kept writing songs and lyrics in a sketchpad I had given her some months ago. She finally left feeling extremely bad about herself. When I asked, she confirmed that she was angry at herself for “fucking things up” and then she said that she felt like “an asshole, [and] a hack, [and] not a real artist.”

When I told her not to be so hard on herself because she didn’t deserve that, she told me not to be so good to her. I sort of shrugged my shoulders in resignation as she continued berating herself needlessly. I realized I couldn’t help at this point.

We hugged briefly at the doorway and I told her to have a good day. She reciprocated, and I waved as she walked down the stairs. She didn’t see me because she was rushing for the subway, but I watched her traverse the courtyard of our building and turn the corner from the window of our kitchen. I really do hope she has a good day.

I know from experience that blaming yourself for causing a break up is one of the most painful things to do to yourself. When my last girlfriend and I broke up, I kept blaming myself for a variety of different things. Of course, there was some value in reflecting on the relationship, but I quickly learned that the blame wasn’t beneficial at all.

I sent a quick email to a friend of Danica’s after she left, a friend with whom she feels very comfortable and actually stayed with for a few hours on each of the nights before she went to sleep at Randy’s. I asked him to kindly take her to see Christo’s The Gates in Central Park. I think it would be good for her to spend time with a friend like him, and I think she’d like the exhibit. I’d have taken her…but that’s no longer a possibility. (For those not aware of the news, check out the public exhibit’s home page.)

Tonight, she’s going to be here since she can not stay at Randy’s. I don’t know why, but I didn’t really care to ask. I don’t know if she’s going to be here the next night, or what’s going to happen for the rest of her stay before she finds another place to live. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see. At least we parted on a more positive note today than we did last night.