A story about the past

So you know how when I get truly exhausted I start feeling bad about myself?

I was, effectively, exhausted all day yesterday. I mysteriously, really mysteriously because this practically never happens, was awake at 5:30 am. Maybe I was excited to assist the big shots I got transferred to assist in the MetLife building 3 days (now 2 days) a week... I don't know. I decided fine, I'd just go in to the Monolith early.. I'd left copies to make anyway.

I was so early that I killed time before 9:00am by answering Rhett's email that said to please send him a sample of my writing. He'd called requesting the same about a month ago. So it was easy enough to do - I sent the one full length play along with an email that said, you know, here it is but gee I feel funny abut staying in touch with him because (for the hundredth time) I once got locked out of my old apartment (when it was new to me) in a blizzard at three am and didn't know where to go and he refused to help me... causing me to display great anguish in a bar where I was eventually aided by the good drunks of Queens, New York. This happened about two years ago.

So I send the play attached to an email saying I don't know how to feel about staying in touch with him based on said self-defining/life-defining event; then I have absolutely nothing to do at the office the whole day through. It's basically humiliating -- big shots doing big shot things - and me attempting only to read high brow things on my visible screen -- it's not easy to even find high brow things on the internet -- so by the time I take my lunch hour, I am feeling old melancholy about Rhett - it wasn't a whole lot of thoughts, more a tired sad feeling, - nothing to be done, I loved him whether he was worthy or not- and patheticness about how much sitting with nothing before me I do under flourescent lights, and dissapointment in that play about boys which I'm fairly sure sucks -- remembered conversations probably do not a play make - I don't think I'll like it enough to send it to any schools as application material.

So then Rhett called at night when I was home and making a snack and I didn't pick up. He left a message that he'd read the whole play and wanted to talk about it and it was really good. "You can get better but it's really good." So at this point, I've actually tried to leave my house once (for more wine? - dvds?) already and found myself sitting on the floor woozy and concluded I couldn't make it - I'm so exhausted. (why didn't you get in bed and go to sleep? Oh shut your face - it was 8:45 or something -- I couldn't do that!) So I start watching a Sopranos with commentary and call Rhett. voicemail. I leave one. By the time I call again, I'm quite convinced that I'm calling to say, "Listen, I'm not kidding about that one moment being too defining for me. When we get in contact I feel bad all day. Thanks but no thanks." (I do know this sounds stupid now. This is the point of this post believe or not. I mean, I do know that if that's how I feel, I should simply not send him plays I wrote, for example. ) But this time he picks up and we talk for way over an hour, possibly two hours.

It was nice and he was very very flattering. It's more than flattery with Rhett though because after all, we even lived together - even if we mostly hated eachother then - nonetheless, it rarely gets closer - psyche wise - than that. After he and I broke up, so many people told me how he was obviously crazy, how I wasn't myself with him, how much smarter than him I was that it could never work. I agree about the smarter part practically 100%. I agree with all of that in fact and I did then. But, also so does he. He knows and he doesn't like it - THAT'S what's going on there. But he really wants to know me, I guess for his whole life. He also really REALLY REALLY wants me to come visit Vermont. Don't worry, readers - that will never happen. As I told him, all that would be would be however many days I was there of me vacillating between being able to talk to him - half-good conversations - and viscerally remembering that no one has ever hurt me more than he did. What fun!

So this post is all about reality, I think. Reality is just not simple, gentle lovely friends. The reality of this situation is that it's nice to talk to Rhett- I was exhausted - I couldn't even think about my play - he got that. He doesn't get everything but he gets a lot about me, in much much nicer terms than I sometimes understand myself too -- sometimes. I know manipulation when ihear it - and this isn't that. He does think highly of me - it's not an act. And he doesn't know what he's doing - he's trying so hard to go to med school to be a psychiatrist that "helps people get off medication." (I'll never understand his preoccupation with helping people not be on medication.) He still works with kids. (A four year old stopped breathing the other day and he didn't know CPR - but she was alright. It's always something so alarming with him though!) I mean he's this pathetic tragic character. And I go through most of my life thinking of him as just that. Tut, tut you know? But really somehow I'll be linked - you know, not by steel, but by a shoestring- to this particular pathetic tragic character. It's not what I wanted and it's HARDLY going to be at the forefront of my thoughts, actions, life -- but if you want to know the REALITY, that's what it is. That's what I'm saying. I'll shake my head and condescend about him forever, but we lived togehter, he built the shelves, cooked more than I did, talked to me for probably eight thousand hours clocked -- who knows? I won't go to visit him. But I'll probably always give him a call back even if I wince when I see he's called at first. We may endlessly have the same conversation about that blizzard. He seems well prepared for that.

So that's the story about the past. Sorry it wasn't terribly narrative. the narrative was basically "I was desperately tired. I talked to my ex. I felt more than one thing at once."