a lesson before dying

I don't typically post extremely personal entries; I figure it's not the purpose behind my blog. However, this weekend has been extremely shitty (which is, actually, a rather severe understatement) and I don't quite feel inclined to hash things out verbally yet. (Sorry, Absent. Please, understand. We'll talk later.) I've turned off commenting on this post because I'm not looking for any responses. But I do need to have this out there for me. I know that one day I'll need the reminders of this weekend and the pain. More than likely, you're going to want to skip this post and come back in a day or two once I've read a book. Or had some happiness. But I don't see that happiness coming for a good while.

Dear Adam,

I'm not sure what to say here. I don't know if you'll ever see this. I don't know if I care. I think you need to know what you did to me.

I guess it's convenient that I'm the one who showed up on your doorstep this morning to break up with you—you now get to be the good guy. But I guess it's more convenient that I still didn't have all the information about what's been going on. Lucky for me, really, since I'm not sure how I would have treated you this morning had I had more tangible information instead of the impressions and feelings I've been working off of.

You have crushed me. Congratulations. I can only assume that's what you were going for, what with the duplicity and underhandedness that you've been showing this last month. Here are two things I now know:

• I am, apparently, unworthy of intimacy.
  
  I know I should look at it as a blessing that you wouldn't have sex with me. It still baffles me that you would go to such lengths to get me riled up and wanting, but I guess that was part of your plan. Even so, what makes you think that I didn't know you were still fucking half of Salt Lake while you were dating me? I knew you were still hanging out with your fuckbuddy—you acknowledged as much—but, really, we all know fuckbuddies are only good for one thing. And you've been rather clueless about putting your lube away. (Or was that your way of trying to get found out? Maybe you were just being passive-aggressive.)
  
  I've heard the rumors about the other boys. (Is it true that you're still sleeping with Justin, because that's a new one that popped up this afternoon. And to think that you had me fooled into believing that he was the one who had treated you poorly.) But I guess the guy you took home Friday night is the one that hurts me most right now. I mean, you admitted this morning that you had come over Friday to break up with me, even though you showed up before I got home from work. But then you made sure I knew I wasn't invited out to the club Friday night. Was that because you had planned to meet the boy you made out with all night? Because you had planned to go home with him?
  
  In the end, I know—I really, truly know—I should be grateful that I don't have to worry about whatever diseases you might happen to be incubating. I know I should have listened to my friends who warned me off of even hanging out with you because of how you use and abuse and manipulate others with sex. (I can't imagine the shit I'd be getting from them if they knew I actually dated you.) Even so, it hurts more than you can imagine to know that I'm not worthy of intimacy with you, though every other Tom, Dick, and Harry in this town is. I know that's an irrational thought. I know I should only really want that intimacy with someone who only wants to share that with me. But foolish me assumed that the purpose of our dating was to get to that point. Stupid, stupid me.
  
  
• I am, apparently, unworthy of dignity or respect.
  
  As I said this morning, you've made it abundantly clear over the last couple weeks that you don't want me around. I sitll don't get why you couldn't just tell me. The abrupt phone calls. Making sure I wasn't invited to things. Treating me like refuse. I get it—I'm shit. I guess I can't help but think it would have been nice for you to spare me some dignity.

I guess I should thank you for the lessons you've taught me. But the most important lesson I'm walking away from this with it this: I, apparently, cannot trust anyone. I trusted you with my heart and my emotions. I know we all like to joke about how cold and heartless I am, but I did have a heart. I did have feelings. But you've managed to piss all over those.

Worse than that, though, is that it's not just you I can't trust; I can't trust our friends either. In all fairness, I will still come to their defense, because you put them in a terrible and awkward position and I understand why they reacted the way they did. But I can't trust them because they never said anything. Sure, they're leaking things here and there now that we've broken up. But before . . . They watched you with the other guys. They heard about your trysts. But they never told me. I understand not wanting to get involved in another couple's affairs, but I feel betrayed by the fact that their inaction left me to flounder in the dark and to sink to what is perhaps the darkest point in my life—and I thought things were bad with Grant there at the end. Do I tell you how, this afternoon, I seriously considered popping all 20 pills that the doctor gave me for my anxiety attacks? In the end, I'm stronger than a bottle of pills. And doing that to myself wouldn't be fair to my parents, my family, Erin, Grant (because he does still care for me, even if I do my best to convince him not to). Nor do I think you deserve the ego boost or martyr status my crazy behavior would give you.

Of course, I guess this all begs the question of whether or not they're actually my friends in the first place, since I did get them in conjunction with you and after all the drama of this weekend, they still called to invite you to brunch but didn't call me. There's a whole lot that I'm really starting to get now.

Anyway, this letter has gone on long enough. I'm drained. Which is good—life is easier without emotion. I know that when I left your place this morning, I said we'd get back to being friends. I think I'm going to recant on that. I don't need your abuse in my life. I realize this means that I'm going to have to seek out a new group of friends as they're already having a difficult enough time trying to balance out me and Grant, regardless of the fact that Grant and I have no issue being in the same room together. (Then again, as I've been putting the pieces together on this bit as well, it appears that you've been the driving force behind the Christian-and-Grant-can't-be-in-the-same-room drama.)

Have a nice life.

Christian