fights, storms, and nightmares! tra-la!

Last night was the shittiest night I've had in a very long time. WOO!

First, the fight. Yep, Micah and I were not happy with each other for a solid 4 hours yesterday. It all started when I came home from work and immediately started cleaning the other window AC unit, the one I decided we must start using RIGHT NOW. Micah, on the other hand, was extremely tired. Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far, and he worked outside in it from 6:30am until 3:00pm. He was totally spent and in a crabby mood, and rightfully so.

He started complaining about how expensive the rent was for such an inefficient place. I was still feeling bad about signing us up for another year, which only made me more gung-ho about getting that fucking unit in the window and creating an igloo for us in the living room. I wanted to show him it didn't have to be so hot. He did NOT want to help me. I only needed his help actually getting the unit in the window, which he did, but he was so negative. Every word that came out of his mouth was drenched with venom, not directed at me, I guess, but more the situation. I was not helping this cause, because I started getting really tired of the negativity and I kind of just started smiling and being nice, trying to diffuse his temper by pretending it didn't bother me, which totally backfired on me. He soon began to think I just didn't care. At all. You don't care that we pay too much. You don't care that I'm tired.

Oh, I care. I'm the one who negotiated the rent down $50 a month. I'm the one spending hours after getting home from work (the most precious time of the day) cleaning that hair-filled AC unit with a butter knife and tweezers, followed by applying plastic over the window with SCOTCH FUCKING TAPE so no hot breeze comes through. And the tired thing? What else am I supposed to do other than offer you food and say Baby, I'm so sorry you're tired. It must be really shitty working outside in that weather. I think about you all day and hope you're doing okay. WHICH IS WHAT I SAID. TWICE. I know this is going to sound trite because not everything should boil down to when you were born, but FUCKING CANCERS, man! The moodiness abounds!

Well. Somehow I get past the sticky negativity without blowing my top and manage to form the igloo, which involved: nailing a blanket over the door-less doorway; pulling the wonky retractable door from it's secret hideaway, closing the massive front window which included Micah struggling mightily with the ancient storm window; the ugly plastic curtain pulled from the depths of the junk closet and jerry-rigged back into place; and weather-proofing all around the AC unit with plastic and said SCOTCH FUCKING TAPE) and I'm feeling very satisfied. The AC unit (can we call him Fred?) is pumping hard, but he's got a lot of hard work ahead of him. Fred's got moldy breath, which scares me, but I figure I just flossed him and what he needs is to be left alone while the fresh breezes blow through him.

Suddenly, there are 60-degree winds bending our neighborhood in half. Our backyard is filling up with tree debris and the gutter flies completely off the building, looking like a ballerina pirouetting dizzily until she falls into the arms of the man-tree. The grass mats I hung for privacy are shredded. The fake plants I bought and then discarded because they looked uglier at home are nowhere to be seen, and I could care less. In the distance I can hear things falling, crashing into other things, and I run inside with glee when the tree in our backyard touches the building, something it can't normally do. Glee? Totally. I fucking love storms. And if a tree fell on my car? I wouldn't cry. I'd take pictures, and then go shopping for a new car.

The 60 mph winds made Micah realize we didn't need to use Fred anymore. We should open the windows again and let some of that chilly air in, Gabby! It sounded rational, sure, except I'd just essentially wasted those hours of getting Fred ready and battoning down the hatches. I knew he had a point - why pay for Fred to run when you can get Mother Nature's whore-ass for free? - but it still completely pissed me off when Micah started undoing my igloo, right down to struggling mightily once more with the storm windows, which he bitched about the whole way through. Isn't there someone who comes and does this? Isn't that why we RENT?
Yes baby, it is, but it's a matter of not wanting to wait two days for some half-wit maintenance guy to show up when you can obviously do it faster yourself.

He knew right away that I was upset. He said I'm sorry I took down everything you put up. To which I replied with the most passive-aggressive answer on the face of the earth: I'm sorry you took it down, too.

So then he put it all back up. And I waltzed in and said what are you doing?! The wind is really cold! at which point we ceased talking completely. We were both past being civil and wisely just shut the fuck up.

Then, while Micah was in the shower, I hear someone yelling his name outside. It's Micah's brother, who has never dropped by unannounced before, but he was in the neighborhood. He was like some sort of angel, albeit a beer-bellied one a few teeth short of a full grill. But then we were able to sit and not talk to each other and be okay with it, 'cause C was distracting us. Ten minutes into his visit Micah waves a little at me to get my attention and he tilts his head at me with a tiny smile as if to say can we be done now? I miss you. And I smile back because I'm done too.

EXCEPT NOT. Because as soon as C leaves, Micah will barely talk to me again. But now I have ceased caring. I'm so TIRED he says. THEN GO TO BED ALREADY! I snap. Because if he tells me he's tired one more time...

We go to bed together, amazingly. It's frigid in the bedroom and I start to feel nicer. I reach out to Micah, he'll barely look at me. Why is it so hard for him to break his moodiness? It's like smiling at me would be admitting defeat in whatever little fucked up battle he's having in his head. I curl my arm around his and cuddle for a moment, which is as intimate as I was willing to be, and then shortly after turned over and fell asleep, conflict not quite resolved but scabbed over, at least. I realized that throughout the entire night of bickering I didn't once think that maybe he wasn't the person I thought he was, that maybe I misjudged him and that I didn't like what was finally coming out, which has always been a theme when I'm involved in a fight with a boyfriend. Not once did I think he wasn't worth it. Because I know the decency and glee that man contains, and I know the bitch I entertain. Everyone has a beast.

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Re: the nightmare I had last night

Dear Ex-boyfriend #1:

It's been seven years since you came along and ruined my life, and six years since you came to my apartment and made me hate you more than I have ever hated anyone. I saw you on the highway once, after the fact. You noticed my car and drove next to me long enough for me to notice someone was intentionally keeping pace with me. When I finally looked over to see who it was, you waved at me and smiled. Like nothing had ever happened. Like the restraining order did not exist. If I'd had my wits about me I would have at least turned my middle finger up at you, but at that moment I could barely breath, you scared my lungs into stillness, and all I could do was turn my head back like you didn't exist and keep driving, scrambling to recall where the closest police station was, prepared to drive right to it. Thankfully, you got off the highway.

I dream about you. Rather, you are the star of my nightmares. I didn't dream about you at all for a long time, and then suddenly you were there on a semi-regular basis, probably once a month. Then the dreams were gone. The last dream I remember having about you (before last night, that is) things were remarkably peaceful. I wasn't running from you. I was walking next to you and we were talking. I thought this was a huge step for me, an indication that I was at peace with what you did to me and no longer felt afraid. See, I never had any therapy after what you did to me, and I should have. I never worked it out. I thought I was doing so well after going through such a thing, the most terrifying thing in my life. After last night, I'm not so sure.

I dreamt I was in my car in a small parking lot. I saw you. You were walking towards my car and I backed up for some reason, I guess it was the only way for me to get out of the lot. I was about to slam my foot on the gas and get the hell away from you but you pulled out a gun and aimed it at me. We were right in front of a hotel and you demanded I go inside with you. I thought you were going to rape me, possibly kill me, because you never put the gun away.

We sat on the bed and you told me that you still love me. You've loved me all these years and you don't know how to get over me. You said you really wanted to have sex with me. You never let go of the gun. I knew I had to get away from you, but I was afraid of you. So I did what I did after you did what you did six years ago - I told you I loved you and no, I wasn't mad at you, and everything would be okay. Anything to make you calm down. Anything to get away.

I don't exactly recall now, some six hours after waking from that nightmare, but I think you might have gone into the bathroom and I snuck out. I remember walking past two hotel maids, thinking what if they go tell him I left? what if he follows me?!

I got away. I drove to my coffeehouse, which didn't look anything like my coffeehouse, and I started looking for Micah. He's my new boyfriend, the man I want to marry, the antithesis of you; he's the greatest thing that has happened to me, whereas you were the absolute worst. I couldn't find Micah. You made me lose track of him. I wandered along strange-looking streets, peering into my friends' apartments, seeing them sitting inside, and not wanting to disturb them in my quest to find you. I knew they didn't know where Micah was.

Then I woke up. I have never woken up and cried after a nightmare, but I did last night. My sobbing woke Micah and I told him what happened and he wrapped his arm tightly around me and told me it was okay. Just a nightmare. I was safe with him and nothing would happen to me.

I don't know what I have to do to get rid of you. I have always been a person who isn't terribly ashamed of my mistakes because I always learned a valuable lesson. Even if it has to be the hard way, I still learn. But you? I am entirely ashamed of you. I am ashamed of who I became when I was with you; someone addicted, greedy, selfish, repulsive and deceitful. You were so kind at first, gentle with your words and touches. I saw you morph into a monster and had the sense to get away. What you did to me was both the worst and best thing that could've happened, because the drugs were no longer a possibility when you stopped being one.

I'd like to say I'm done with you, I won't think of you, but I know that's not realistic. I know I probably dreamt of you last night because of the rough evening I'd had. I'd spent the evening arguing, a terrible storm blew through, and I went to sleep with unresolved anger, which is something I am very much against. I broke my own rule about going to bed angry. You pop up when shit is going wrong, because you are (and always will be) the representation of Shit Going Wrong, and you must be deeply entrenched in my subconcious at this point.

Basically? Fuck you. Fuck you, you fucking asshole. You are fucking pathetic. Getting away from you was hard, so hard, but hating you is the easiest thing I've ever done. And I'll do it forever. If you ever see me again you can be sure I won't turn my head and keep driving. All I can do is hope karma does its dirty job. I should've known not to mess with you when I found out you'd been shot in the face, because people don't get shot at 3:00am on their own doorstep because they didn't do anything. I'm sorry he missed. Sorry your doctors were so good.

Worst,
G
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On a far less melodramatic note, Happy Birthday, Shelly! You are such a great friend and even if you'd rather not, you always listen and give honest advice. You'll always be my favorite Spades partner!

(Shouldn't go to bed angry, shouldn't leave a blog angry.)