In which my baby left me.

I’ve written this post about five times now but they keep getting away from me so I don’t post them. Can’t find the balance between the part of me that has a lot of grievances and wants to bitch, and the part that knows there’s not really much fault as much as bad genes and doesn’t want to litigate pointlessly.

The short version is I thought the relationship I was in was going to last the rest of my life, but it didn’t. He lost his mind, turned into a shithead, we had a miserable couple years, and then he moved out. It was the honorable thing to do, under the circumstances. Apparently he’d realized he would or could not stop behaviors I could not live with, and would or could not do the behaviors I needed, and since I really was genuinely miserable he did the only thing for me he felt he could, and left.

It hurt like hell, of course. I’m still sad. I miss him, and our life, and his presence and voice and hugs and terrible storytelling. But I’m also not mad, miserable, unhappy, and afraid all the time. I’d thought for a long time he was clinically depressed and slumming because he could afford not to work for awhile. I didn’t understand the episodes I witnessed but expected he’d tell me whatever I needed to know when I needed to know it.

He never did. If he had, it would have gone much differently, but I guess he couldn’t. He always tried, but some shit is beyond that. And even crazy people have rights; you can’t make them do shit they don’t want to do, or even convince them they need help before they’re ready. To him, if I understand correctly, his worst behaviors are necessary, he has to do them, they’re who he is. In certain states, my rejection of the drinking and lying and baiting is totally reasonable, but in others it’s not a rejection of symptoms but a rejection of him.

My dad’s been living in an RV for twenty-odd years and was house hunting in the area. I can’t afford to live on my own because I don’t earn enough. So the love of my life and I broke up and over the next two weeks signed all the relevant paperwork, and then on the 29th of May he got into his vehicle and drove away from me forever and now my dad owns the house.

In the twelve weeks he’s been here he’s fixed, maintained, or replaced all the shit that you’re supposed to fix, maintain, or replace when you’re a home owner. Faucets work, gutters are clean, furniture’s been repaired, lamps have been fixed. Right now his old ass is doing maintenance up on the roof of the patio that will hopefully stop it from leaking when it rains. I think he’s too old to be on the goddamned roof, but apparently he doesn’t agree.

The guest room is now my bedroom, and it’s clean and cute and comfortable and just like I like it. I’ve been through every single box, cupboard, drawer, and closet in the whole house, and gotten rid of a lot of stuff and organized everything else. I have a dresser now. All the holiday decorations are in one place. The office is cute as hell now.

My dad is a great housemate. We go to wineries. We read books. He runs the dishwasher, I put the clean dishes away. We have separate containers of milk in the fridge because I work in a literal creamery and he drinks almond milk. He bought the cat a scratching post. One morning I got up to find he’d fixed the flat on my bike for me and I nearly cried because I hadn’t received that kind of help in a long, long time.

For me, it’s better, and I’m extremely grateful and slowly relaxing and unlearning the defenses and preemptive disappointment. I’ve been doing stuff I quit years ago, like plucking my eyebrows, and doing the occasional face mask or pedi. I’ve been decorating; redoing the bathroom just for fun. The way you do when you’re not stressed, worried, and miserable.

My ex is home again, 1620 miles away, and with family so I don’t have to worry that he’s alone. We spoke every single day for twelve years, but now it’s been three months of occasional texts.

Long story short, I’m heartbroken but doing fine.

And now that I’ve gotten this posted, and I’m not in a wanted relationship catastrophically failing, I might be able to blog regularly again!