teacher, another second time around:

i was driving home earlier today and listening to a cd that i hadnt listened to in years. as the songs played i was reminded of summer nights, drinking more than i should have, and the company of a specific woman.

 ive mentioned her here several times over the years so i wont get into the relationship again. i will say that she was a woman that i had loved arguably more deeply than any other before or since.

this is a story i havent shared before, as far as i know only one person knows about it before tonight. this is the story of the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to me.

the relationship ended abruptly, with no warning, and as randomly as she entered my life, so too did she exit.

she left.

i was crushed.

 

and in my brilliant way of attempting to deal with anything painful, i drank... a lot.

looking back i can see this as one of my "milstones" in the progression of my intake, it was around then that i began drinking every night, and with few exceptions i spent every night since as drunk as i was able to get. at least until last april. im not blaming her for my drinking, that was my choice, as foolish as it was.

 

over the next few months  following the end of the relationship i would eventually get calls from her, mostly at night and nearly always drunk. 

i dont remember feeling any better after any of the conversations we had.

eventually the phone calls stopped and i heard through mutual friends that she was "dating" again and by dating they meant that she was really just sleeping around. as hard as it was to hear that news, i had no real choice but ti accept it and have another beer. 

this all leads to what came up today in my car, a memory of  one of the most painful things ive ever experienced.

i had come home for christmas, traditionally back then that meant a gauntlet of family dinners many many bottles of everything and for the most part, fun. some time shortly after christmas and new years i had come home rather drunk and began searching for my cell phone that i had forgotten to take with me to dinner. 

i had missed a call.

it was late, after two in the morning, and the number wasnt familiar, but there was a message.

so there i am in my mothers kitchen, alone in the dark listening to the call that i had missed.

at first i was confused, the voices unintelligible, i began to think that it had been just a wrong number. then i heard a guy ask if it was on, and a familiar female voice saying that it was. and then i heard the unmistakeable sound of people having sex.

i didnt end up listening to the entire message, in my drunken state my emotions ran the gamut of pain, anger, shock, and denial. denial until i called the number back and got her voice mail, she had changed her telephone number.

that was when i was filled with soul crushing despair and depression.

 

to this day i have no idea why she would have done that to me. maybe she thought that it would make things easier for me if i hated her, or maybe she just thought that it would be funny... like i said, i dont know.

so now, years later, im ambushed by the memory and while there was  that familiar dull ache that happens when i think about her, the anger, the pain these no longer seem to come.

i know that its insane to hold on to that, and that all these years later i still think about her when im sure that she never thinks about me. i admit that i dont really have any better idea of how to let go now than i did back then, but i know that i really would like to be able to.

she taught me many things

she taught me to watch my back, to limit my trust, and taught me that its the people that you love who can truly hurt you the most.