I Can See Clearly Now, the Bullshit Is Gone

Ok, the bullshit is still there, but I can distance myself from the love that I felt/feel? for this man enough to hear what he's not saying. It was payday today, which means bills need to be paid and shopping trips must be made. So we agreed to be polite and non-confrontational while attending to mundane matters like laundry soap and toilet paper. Together.

I listen to him blubber on about how he loves me and will never find another and blabber blah (standard stuff). He talks about how maybe he shouldn't have been so uptight about the house being clean and he should have been easier on the girls (who are not here right now). How he will go to counseling.

He isn't pushy. Not demanding. He is charming and funny. He tears up every now and then, but not in an attention-getting way.

I glance at him while he's speaking, and imagine me in my own place. I can get up in the morning and turn on the tv. Blow-dry my hair. I can have friends. I can sleep by myself and not wake up when he rolls over, scared that he's going to wake up and bitch about theblanketsthebabythemessmystinkyfart and eleventymillion other things he complained about.

He talks about how he wants to "try", no, not try but "really try", and I think about the counseling session and the cycle of violence and how I really miss myself and how it's been three mornings in a row now where I didn't want to drive my car off of a steep highway curve with my eyes closed.

He looks at me, pleading. I smile, and tell him, again, that I will never share a roof with him. And then I change the subject. Messy and I gather our overnight-away-stuff, and we leave.