X: 8/25/03

Work Diary, 8/25/03

Forget suicide - I'm already half dead. The other half is looking back
at me, bemused, wondering just what my capacity for melodrama is.
Maturity seems to be winning the battle, however. Time-warp this
feeling into my sixteen-year-old self, and god knows the concept of
"work diaries" wouldn't have come from me.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to look at an apartment. The
grand experiment - i.e., my ex-partner and I living together - doesn't
appear to be working out. I'd like to be the one person in a million
who could say, "Yah, it's, like, so great!" but that isn't going to
happen. I thought I was immune to jealousy and envy, but I'm not. Last
night he came home at 10:30, turned on his television, started cracking
those goddamn sunflower seeds, and sent me into a rage that still makes
my blood boil.

And for what? If things hadn't changed, I would simply have rolled over
and gone back to sleep. As it was, I started shouting&;#8230;and
shouting. It is my lot in life to not find the chirping of crickets
soothing, so imagine my response to the Simpson's at 10:32 p.m.,
accompanied by the crack-slurp-chink of a sunflower-seed-eater. I
wasn't quite murderous but rationality went right out the window each
time he forced a new seed down his gullet.

People in my family have horrible tempers. I've never tried to hide
that. Once, when I was carjacked outside my apartment building, I hit
the crook in the face until he left my car. Later, I found the breath
mint I'd been planning to eat still in my palm, intact. So, even if I
lose my temper, my priorities are usually in place, mortal danger or
not (the bastard cut my eyebrow and nicked my cheek, but my breath sure
smelled good).

Apparently this temper has no place in my relationship. It is far too
early for me to overcome the late-night meanderings, the coos and
giggles on the phone, the flushed face of an ex-partner who just got
back from a whirlwind tour of somebody else's&;#8230;well, you get
the picture. I can't help myself. I see/smell/hear the nasty tidbits
and I go beyond the world of mere cuckoldom. I enter the world of sheer
hate.

I am not that person. Okay, I am that person, but I don't want to be.
Have you ever shouted to the point that your voice finally gives out on
you? I've done that three times in the last month. Ridiculous. At work
I've ended telephone conversations simply by hanging up. When driving,
I whine and whine about why traffic has come to a complete stop.

What is wrong with me? Is there some cut-off line for civilized
behavior, where you get to be polite but quickly transform into a
green-eyed bitch? Why do I feel so immature when all I want is some
recognition that things are not what they seem? Why do I care at
all?

I am trying so hard not to fall into the typical traps of a dead
relationship: Oh, he'll be sorry when I'm gone; Oh, just wait until he
goes out there and sees what's available; Oh, nobody will take care of
him like I do. But it isn't working. Partly it's because I know that
there are plenty of people out there to take care of him, but mostly
it's because I know it doesn't really matter. Whatever will be, will
be.

You know, it really sucks when your life philosophy rears up and bites
you on the ass.