It’s 5:30 p.m. and I am listening to Jose Gonzales’ Heartbeats on repeat because it is a comforting song and it is comforting to know what comes next. I am tired because my day started yesterday with the promise of sobriety broken, with all the alcohol that my body could not process from last night still coursing through my veins. I met LA and DK at the dive bar and then we press on for the house. They meet me there. I beat them biking it. We hang and DK tells me about growing up one girl with four boys in Philly. I get wasted and chain smoke and tell her that indesign is underused and underappreciated, and that I love LBB because LBB is funny and has two front teeth precisely half a pica longer than mine and because LBB finds me to be perfectly correct in a certain physical way that embarrasses me to be proud of, but man sometimes it is nice to be appreciated for things that are completely accidental and beyond your control, as though you had anything to do with them whatsoever.
So of course the first thing I do upon waking is email LBB back and try to act cool which just leads to the delivery of a stilted, crap email, but I hit send already: what’s done is done. As better writers have already said, cross winds may exist. Or something. Walk home, stop for donuts, shower up, do the dishes, call DK call DK call DK (you will probably have to shake me, I really like to sleep in) call DK brag that I don’t have work today to TS, make crit. mass plans (broken), bike to grocery store, help old lady find sauerkraut, smile about LBB, smile about LBB, buy groceries, sing sawdust & diamonds (1st verse only, and summat altered) all the way there and all the way back, obeying all traffic signals (mostly).
DK calls! Down yummy veggie brat quickquickquick. Meet at the train, but ohfuck I left the farecard at home and have my laptop and this sweaty little succulent and crap DK is doing me a favor and I can’t make DK wait. Here is the friendship plant that was for another friend, that is now for you, but you knew that already, and the point is that it’s yours now and even if you kill it, I have faith that this new friendship won’t be dead. And anyway sometimes things just die. And I really just can’t take care of it, and what’s more, it’s a wound torn open again. I just can’t look at it anymore. BUT OH! it’s so warm and nice. You have to go to work though. Boo. And then uninstall uninstall and must turn off the internet to save to disk and plans plans plans for swimmin’ & shootin’ & oh you’re a doll, a delight, you’re pure pepperoni in a good way.
Cool ranch doritos. Roosevelt. Check work mail. Fuck I am tired and LBB is brilliant and I’ve not picked any more fights today, and talked with MB for hours and MB will be here Monday. Crap I have a lot of work to do and shit to install. AS will visit by summer’s end. I am tired I am soso tired and still drunk. Time for a nap and then back to the grind.
Sometimes I feel unappreciated by the person to whom I’ve given my heart. It’s a hopeless, hollow feeling that makes me wince and bite my tongue in a feeble attempt to fend off the tears.
The depth is there—the love is there—but I miss the newness, the flutter of hope. And sometimes, it’s not clear that what I miss should even be absent.
Does being together for such a long time mean that you no longer value what you have? Does dependability replace that subtle, starry-eyed lust?
Is it petty to crave a compliment or a brief suggestion of continued interest? Am I missing the point? Is the appreciation there, beneath the surface, merely waiting to be perceived? I wish that I could sense it…I wish I knew it existed.
And, there it is again, in the back of my brain, weighing on my conscience and my heavy, frightened heart…can two people be wrong for each other, even when they are truly in love?