June, 2007

THE EMAIL HAD arrived late the night before, an automatic message from my secondary MySpace account.  I hated MySpace for thousands of reasons; the army of fourteen year old girls, the complete degradation of human communication, the loud blaring music, epilepsy-inducing flashes, and unavoidable spam that came with even the sparsest of visits.  It seemed like a medium where the moronic came to truly express themselves – from a pre-set list of 12 ways to express yourself. 

I mainly hated the fact that people I knew could find me, whether or not I particularly wanted them to. 

This notification was of a friend request, in this case an invitation launched by *hearts* (Ex's Name) *hearts*.  “*hearts* (Ex's Name) *hearts* would like to be added as one of your friends!,” it blared at me in the script of a fourteen year old emoticon addict.  “Please click this link to view your friend requests and accept or deny this user!”

Ahhh, fuck.

It had been almost four years.  Four years.  God, it was a lifetime.  And yet my mind still wandered to thoughts of her sometimes, sometimes in pure hatred, other times in utter sadness at what had happened.  It was much better than when I lived up north; it wasn’t as all-encompassing, as powerful anymore.  The link was weakened with distance, somehow.  In the thousand days or so since I last spoke to her – the successes and failures, the love and death, the knowledge and maturity I had gained – her hold over my thoughts had waned. 

            And yet, in one tiny moment, that icy feeling gripped my heart all over again, leaving me scared and overpowered, fuming and annoyed, tiny and sad.  Jesus, I know the first one stays with you, but what the fuck.  I didn’t know it was going to be a permanent ass-barnacle of this terrifying degree.

            I had expected it, in all honesty.  Her screen name had popped up around nine-thirty or so, which it only did every six months or so now.  She was probably online sending emails and wedding invites, and pouring over the congratulations that her cyber-pals were heaping upon her.  But the last time, after her almost apologetic, near-confessional yet still confrontational conversation, I was pretty sure she had deleted me off her IM list.  I was almost sure that even though I still Googled her with bi-monthly infrequency, I had fallen off of her psychological landscape completely.  It was good, probably, but left me sad somehow…as if it all could have been erased so easily. 

            But THAT was something I should have experience in, right?  Not everyone breaks up with the love of their life to get some space, only to find them in a relationship – nay, in love – a scant few weeks later.  We’re talking days, maybe single digits.  I had an established, forgettable tendency. 

            I had logged into the account to see the friend request, to see the wedding-ish photo she had posted as her chosen shot.  Her and the guy, the same guy from her work all those years back, with the kids and divorce and the Jerry-Springer-At-Work stuff going on, and the hitting-on-a-girl-in-a-relationship thing that I took so seriously at the time.  “He’s not the one,” she had said to me those four years ago.  “But…you know.  For now.”  Yet she had stayed there, in the same relationship this whole time, as near as I could tell. 

            I had a mix of feelings about this…even now, I still harbored a grudge against the older co-worker for taking advantage of the girl I knew.  I hated him for taking such a sweet thing, and for giving her a pathway to be less than what she could have been.  But perhaps it was meant to be – perhaps he saved me from yet more years of psychological torment, of trying desperately to love and placate a woman growing increasingly unstable.  But was he the best she could do?  Didn’t she deserve – I don’t know.  A writer, a thinker, a dreamer…all the things I thought I was.  But she was never happy with that, after all…so maybe this just fit better.  Maybe it fit perfectly.  

            I kept my account online, riding the gamble that she would look me up after all.  I put up an away message – the lyrics to Biodegradable Life, which I thought might appear incredibly interesting and potentially insightful, should she try to message me and find them in my place.  After all, even when I wrote about politics or world events, some thought of her often forced its way into the words:

The weight of it all may be inescapable

The thought of it all may be so infeasible

The feel of it all may be so intangible

The idea of it all was once unimaginable

The fear of it all being inexorable

The beauty of God is he’s not infallible

Baby you know that I am unstoppable

Passion for life must be inexhaustible

And it’s all just a part of this biodegradable life

Skyscrapers rise

While our morals fall

Millions of lives

Mean nothing at all

Our hope comprised

One lovely thing

But your web of lies

Has ruined everything

With lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and

Lies and lies, yah

            I went to work slightly distracted, and had a mediocre day.  For some reason, lots of old contacts were reaching out to me – old coworkers, bosses, a few friends from bands, old roommates, etc.  Must be the moon, I thought.

            At home I went through my normal routines – board meeting for the homeowner’s association, working out, playing with my stocks over a sandwich, text messaging the girlfriend.  Then, sure enough, it popped up on my screen. 

            “Hello?”

            She got my auto-response, shooting twenty or so lines of 5/4 verse her way.  I looked over it, re-reading my own words as I often did.  I wondered if she would read them, if they would mean anything to her.  I looked down at the floor, closed my eyes…part of my wanted to delay responding to make it not look immediate, and the other half really didn’t want to reply at all.  What do I say?  How do I act?  What face do I put on for someone I broke up with four years ago, and have talked to maybe twice since?  Do I treat her like an old friend, or a cheating bitch?

            I cycled through a few options – angry and dismissive, open and caring, genuinely disinterested…perhaps even openly jealous.  So, how’s the cock?, I wanted to type for a brief moment.  Partly to shock, and partly to reestablish any sexual connection with her.  Maybe she would leave me alone after that.  Or maybe she would answer.

            Disgusted with myself, I chose partly friendly, partly disinterested. 

            “Yes.”

            She was typing.  “Still writing, I see.”  Well, at least she had seen the words.  Whoopee.  After the way she had always acted towards my poetry – disinterest flavored with slight contempt – there was no real good path for this to follow. 

            “Hah,” I said.  “Once in a while, when something hits me.”

            We made small talk, the weather, did we still live in our respective states.  I had an urge to discuss my current state of affairs – my career, promotions, the stocks and accounts I have and the things I own.  I dismissed it all.  I didn’t want to take her into my life, not even to shoot my mouth off about finances and figures.  Once she broke trust for good, once she used everything she had to hurt as much as she could…there was no going back.  She wanted to have those feelings again – friendships, relationships, a whole army of acquaintances and more.  Hence the farming of MySpace, the old grade school friendships rehashed, the desperate reaching out for any and all takers.  Maybe it was natural, or maybe it was pitiful, but I wasn’t taking part either way. 

            I kept her very much at arms length, an arm several thousand miles long. 

            “I’m getting married in Aug.”

            She said it seemingly out of nowhere, and just like that, the bag was empty.  This was the purpose.  Why, I thought.  To justify it, somehow?  To undo all the words and thoughts from years ago, and make her relationship bonafide somehow?  To get my approval?  Or just to notify me, perhaps.  There was no way to know – almost any communication she had with me, I was bound to over-analyze with honed psychological prowess – from years and years of trying to figure out what she meant, what she wanted, what made her do what she did.  Every time I started walking that path, I had to pull myself back; That way lies destruction. 

            “’Grats,” I said nonchalantly.  I wasn’t the least bit shocked by it – she had posted it proudly on MySpace for months, and she had always wanted to be married very badly.  Aside from her own words those years ago, it made perfect sense – and with the frequency that she lied to me back then, I should have expected it as soon as they had reached the year mark. 

            Whatever she was looking for – friendship, understanding, interest – she wasn’t getting it.  Or perhaps she was getting close to breaking that barrier again, to talking about everything all over again, which was something she seemingly regretted given the silence since.  Either way, she said she had to go pack.  I didn’t inquire where she was traveling to or why, because I didn’t care.  But I told her congrats again, and that I hoped things worked out, to perhaps appear like less of a dick, yet enforce that dickishness in the same breath.  I hope things work out.  You know, because they won’t.  Not that I give a fuck.

            After she was gone, I wondered what would happen next.  Was that it?  She was done, for life?  Married, raising someone else’s five kids, my manic-depressive ex-love interest turned housewife was fulfilled.  How horrible, I thought…yet, so nice to know where your life is going. 

            All in all, I really didn’t know how to feel.  I didn’t know what she wanted, and I really didn’t know what I wanted, either.  Part of me wanted to sit down over coffee, to hear her apologize in person instead of six months previous over IM, maybe some sort of therapy applied like a gel on my soul.  Part of me wanted to express that thrashing beast of hatred that I had held in check all that time, not unleashing it on her, not exposing all the lies to her family, her friends, the public. 

            Mostly, I just wanted to sit down and write.  I picked up my guitar and called my girlfriend.