Ode to Narcissism

This is a ridiculous thing to blog about. I apologize.

I was thinking about the people who seem to reappear in my life from time to time.  Ex-boyfriends, mostly.  And you know, surprisingly, it brings a lot less closure than you might imagine.

Maybe because it’s never the one’s I was in love with.  

For example:  About three or four years ago, my First took it upon himself to show up at my house for a little visit.  (And by first, yes, I mean the guy I lost my virginity to.  I was trying to sound less… vulgar, maybe?  I don’t know.  Less something.  Anyway…).  It was extremely uncomfortable.  I never loved this guy.  Hell, I didn’t even like him that much.  I was fifteen when we met, and the relationship lasted approximately three months.  When I broke up with him, I told him it was because I didn’t love him and I didn’t see the point in staying in the relationship.  He was a little older, and I think he had partially expected me to be the typical fifteen year old… you know, fawning all over him, holding hands around campus, all of that other sickening garbage.  When I didn’t, it surprised him.  He took the breakup hard (as hard as one can take a three month long teenage romance, I guess).  He would call my house all the time and ask me to give him another chance.  But I was pretty ruthless in those days.  He even went as far as to tell the next guy I dated that I was easy and “experienced” (though at this time the count was still at one).  I avoided him until he graduated.  And then, one day, years later, he shows up on my doorstep and asks to come in to use the phone.  He claimed his truck had broken down, and his cell wasn’t working.  I had grown softer with age, and couldn’t bring myself to decline.  So, I let him in, handed him the phone, and went into the other room for a few moments to finish up what I had been doing when he showed up.  When I went back to check on him, he started in with the questions.  He asked me how I was doing.  Told me he heard about my bad break-up (with the aforementioned Love #1).  He even said I looked good.  All of this I could have handled without much thought.  It’s the usual catching up chat.  Polite words thrown out to fill the air.  But then he asked me something strange.  He said, very eerily, “Are you happy?”.  How does one even begin to answer a question like that?  I don’t know if I’ll ever be really, truly happy.  I experience moments of happiness, but they’re just moments.  Generally, it’s not a lasting happiness.  Those moments are the only concept I have of happiness.  The feeling is there until another comes along to take its place.  Instead of expressing all of this to him, I said, very emphatically, “Yes.  I am extremely happy.”  I lied because I didn’t want him to think he could come back.  I didn’t want my true feelings to trigger some kind of reaction in him… some kind of weakness receptor that would tell him to attack, or that this was his second chance.  Because honestly, he never really had a first chance.  He was the product of the whim of a fifteen year old girl, bored out of her mind and impatient to get it over with.  He expressed a desire to keep in touch, even going so far as to press a piece of paper with his number on it into my hand, insisting that I keep it and call him.  I threw it in the trash as soon as I showed him out.  He called my house less than three minutes later to inform me that he got his truck to start, and to express his pleasure at still remembering my number (from when we dated prior).  Yeah.  It was pretty terrifying.

This is a ridiculous thing to blog about.  I apologize.

Day three with no alcohol - and counting. 

I am too exhausted to offer anything of substance.  Maybe tomorrow.

I will say this:  Anna Mae Pictou Aquash is haunting me lately.  If you don’t know who she was, you should.