Days 0683, 0684 & 0685

My psychiatrist once told me about a patient of his who came in wanting to be ‘cured’ of the anxiety they felt when traveling in elevators. I don’t know how quickly he came up with his response – he made it sound immediate in his telling – which was this:

How many tall buildings are there in this city? (There are hardly any above six or seven stories.)

And then he said:

Can you get away without taking elevators? Can you walk up the stairs instead?

And of course the answer was yes.

So the patient was ‘cured’. Not of their fear of elevators, small spaces and the anxiety of being trapped in a metal box, but of the sense that they needed to take the challenge head on.

Sometimes, my psychiatrist said to me, making yourself work so hard isn’t the answer. And it doesn’t really help anyone.

At first I saw this view as simply practical and pragmatic.

But I think he was telling me to be a bit easier on myself. Not all faults or failings are things to be fixed. The wise person knows when not to waste energy.

And it was this thought that dropped into my head today when I was required to wake at a truly ungodly hour to catch a plane. 

In my barely awake state jumbled subconscious thoughts organized themselves into a conscious line.

I can’t forgive Halfman for what he did to me. I’ve beaten myself up for ages thinking that was something I should accomplish for my own sake. 

But the revelation is that I don’t need to forgive him. Ever.

I allow myself to be angry when his stench invades my life. I think that is fair.

And I never need to forgive him because I never need to have anything real to do with him ever again. Now that gives me a sense of peace.

The only person who needs to go through the pain and hard work of forgiving him is his wife. And then, only if she wants to.

Being unable to forgive is not a sign of a weak character. Of course, I would like to be able to forgive, but it would only be for my own personal edification.

And, quite frankly, I can’t be bothered.

Arsehat without end. Now and forever. Amen.

Days 0560 & 0561

So the Halfman haunted my dream last night. And the worst part of it? I found myself enjoying his quiet, whimsical company. It was the pre-Halfman in my dream: the person-constructed-by-Halfman who I had fallen in love with and cared about.
It made me so angry with myself that I was pleased to see him in my dream.
Distance means I can see this:
When I discovered the Halfman betrayal I had been 3/4 of the way through the process of mourning the loss of what I had believed was a sincere and gentle relationship with someone whose brain and company I enjoyed.
Halfman’s appearance sent me to a place where I couldn’t mourn that person any more: he hadn’t been real. He’d been deceiving me the entire time. I was a bloody fool and he was a fucking bastard. I wanted that person I’d loved to hate me and be scared of me.
So I didn’t finish the mourning because it didn’t seem real. And it hurt to mourn something that was just an illusion. I felt like a fool and a horrid person for what he’d done to his wife with me in tow.
And I refused to remember anything about him with joy or even a quiet happiness because he’d destroyed it all so thoroughly.
Now I’ve reached a point where I’ve forgiven myself a bit at least. And I think it might be ok to stick a tentative foot into allowing myself to have fond memories of some of our times together: even if they weren’t ‘real’.
But see, even writing that down in a sentence makes me want to puke — and a BIG LOUD PUKE, not some ladylike barf in a handkerchief.
So while the thought has entered my mind, I still haven’t come to a place where I can enact it. Where I can allow myself to think fondly of a bastard who screwed me royally both literally and figuratively.
One day though, perhaps a fond memory or even a non-angry one won’t lead me to this place of self and Halfman hate. One day the warmth I feel about this won’t be a burning anger but a fond remembrance of how a young, immature man who was able to sit a metre from me for a whole year and fall for me in spite of it. It will be nice to arrive at that place.
But until then: This middle finger’s for you, Halfman.

Day 0528

So I invested another millimetre’s worth of tooth enamel in that scuzzy bastard last night: hardly slept at all.
I wasn’t particularly thinking about him or not running him over. I most definitely wasn’t feeling sentimental.
It was like I had All The Feelings bubbling just under my Conscious-Thought Bubble. Like caffeine too late in the day leads to a tired body and a restless mind.
I kept telling him to go away; kept shutting him out; but he was still there, lanky arms and legs, fuzzball face, scraping his lacksidaisical fingernails on my metaphorical braindoor.
And the positive thing I can see in this – because, let’s admit, that’s something I can always see – is that I didn’t let it pull me down any further than that.
I’ll sleep well tonight and continue on with my own life – one that I feel increasingly proud of, one where I don’t feel embarrassed by my actions because I own them, a life where I refuse to scuttle away from things that are difficult or people I don’t particularly admire.
And he … he will continue to be lost. And continue to scuttle. And continue to lie and betray until the end.
Because a leopard — even a lazy, gormless, psychopathic one — doesn’t ever really change his spots.

Days 0526 & 0527

So, the opportunity to run his spindly, balding Halfman body and bike over with my car finally presented itself.
It’s only a fantasy of course so I obeyed all traffic rules.
But the anger that spiked through me and has made my hands shake and my heart pound is most decidedly not fantasy.
In some ways it’s a good thing to be confronted by him looking exactly like he always has. I’ve left him far behind – I can literally see that. Especially when my first impression of him visually is that of someone rumpled and unwashed. It wasn’t until I noted the silver and orange bespoke helmet that I recognised him for my ex lover; for that person I let in to me so deeply.
I’m pretty sure he saw me: he’s that kind of person. I had to stop for a red light. He jumped onto the sidewalk rather than pass me, couldn’t cross at the lights so took a turn and peddled for the hills.
Along with the anger – that’s going to remain with me all morning – I thought: I used to think I knew you. How wrong. How wrong.

Day 0507

Oops! Turns out Love does not actually = Kindness. I’ve spent my life thinking the two things shared the same definition, which makes me a real turkey cos I’ve certainly experienced all types of love but relatively little kindness over the years.
In fact, when I think about the possibility of meeting someone new – and it has begun to cross my mind once in a while (a nice change) – I want to find kindness before almost anything else.
Almost anything equals: right wing political views, unkempt nosehair and an exhaled wheeze instead of a belly laugh. And, of course, anyone who says while naked and in bed: So do you think less of me now because you know I cheat on my wife? … This is the first time of course!
SO how does one identify kindness?
I can recognise love: big, warm, blinding, deafening, stomach churning, electricity making love.
But kindness, it’s much gentler and quieter cousin, how do you identify that? And how do you distinguish true kindness from just being polite or gentlemanly? How do you know that it’s a kindness that will last into the intimacy of knowing someone really well?
Is the only way to test it? Because I don’t have a great batting average with that method?
I need a Cosmo Quiz!

Day 0418

Fark. I still have such a total inability to cope with seeing Halfman’s spouse walking about being real.
To think that she must see me as such a hideous person or perhaps such a stupid, hoodwinked person who helped break her heart. And even if she doesn’t see me that way, she should.
And if I let myself imagine how Halfman has grovelled and blamed me and half or a quarter or an eighth revealed the truth of his deceptions to her. I can just hear him conveniently allowing silence to answer the questions from her that he is too scared to answer honestly.
And she, like me most probably, would fill those silences with wishful thinking and love for him and nostalgia for once was.
It is so much easier to blame an outsider than take on the full feelings that would come with total betrayal.
I guess if that gets her through I would wish it for her.
But him … I find it hard to imagine him not being totally revealed to her for the sociopath he seems to be.

Day 0408

I really am getting back to myself. Now, when I think of revenge and Halfman at the same time, it’s not quite so filled with tyre tracks, crashing sounds and drinks spilled over heads. Or even of a de-panted Arsehat cowering as I call his wife on his retro Nokia mobile.
Nope. Though those ideas still turn the corners of my mouth upwards and entertain me from time to time, the whole anger thing is a lot less visceral.
Now it is increasingly cerebral – and that I can understand and live with. Probably because it’s in there inside my head and doesn’t need to get out to be actual and true. It just is.
I’ve been able to see for a while that part of my revenge is that he will always be Halfman. That can’t be loads of fun, can it? Especially as the muscles and youth – and hair follicles and indecisions built on indecisions – fade out into middle age.
But also, I have my revenge because in spite of so many many things, I have moved forward in the past year and a bit. And I dare say I’ve moved a hell of a lot further towards a satisfying self than he has.
Inertia may seem harmless but it is heavy and it hurts. I’ve felt its steel clad hands touch me and I am thankful I urged it on its way past me. Halfman remains fully clasped in its tiresome grip.

Day 0401

The 1000 Days Guide to knowing when it’s time to break up with that dude.

1. You fantasies about them having an affair.
2. You seriously prefer extracting in-grown hairs from your legs to their company.
3. Their extraneous use of the words ‘gluten-free’ cause you annoyance even when you are not physically in the same room as them.
4. Their attempts at romantic sweet nothings make you bark with laughter.
5. You feel sorry for them.
6. They prefer extracting hair from their chin with tweezers to kissing you.
7. Any amount of the dinner you cooked them lands on your hair or face in protest at what you have made.
8. They accuse you of trying to kill them by serving over ripe avocado.
9. You can feel the hair on your arms rise in your defense when they start getting all romantic and sexy with you.
10. He invites his ‘estranged’ wife to Christmas lunch instead of you.
11. He tells you he’s had ‘fantasies’ about you and a woman he works with.
12. He congratulates you on being smart – maybe even smarter than him!
13. You’ve heard that story before and saying so doesn’t stop him.

Day 0398

It’s often the simple things that blow my mind. Not totally sure what that says about my mind, but there you have it.

A woman said this to me today: Have you ever stopped to consider that [Halfman] might just have been bad luck?

*crickets* *Mind blown*

Suddenly a whole new world opened up to me. One in which my failings aren’t the reason for The Halfman Experience. Where my safeguards and my idealism didn’t combine to let a complete arsehat into my life to steal my heart and a portion of my hard-fought-for soul.

I don’t absolve myself of responsibility for poor choices but this paradigm at least says I didn’t make it happen. That I didn’t contribute to it happening.

And then she said: What kind of person has the energy to lie that much for that long?

And I thought how true that is. No normal person has the energy to put into living a double crossing, lying life.

And I draw a quite reasonable line at thinking that anyone I perceive as normal would do that sort of thing. It’s for movie villains and hardcore psychos.

Certainly a lot of the reason I’m a generally good person is that it takes a whole lot more effort to be cruel, deceitful and ungenerous. And I just ain’t got time for that.

I will give Halfman at least this though: He’s not a psycho and he didn’t set out to be a double crossing, lying arse; he fell into it and then put energy in to sustain it. That sounds more like him to me. Lack of effort got him there and then he didn’t have the gumption to Do The Right Thing. It was easier to exhaust himself being a liar than to make a decision.

I do so hope that conscience of his has chronic fatigue. And that his wife still reminds him how she ‘feels the pain anew’ each day. And that his willy is limper than my hair after a too hot, too damp and too draining day.

 

Days 0377 & 0378

I’ve spent a lot of my adult life learning the hard way that the world isn’t black and white, good and evil, kind and nasty. And I work hard to make sure I acknowledge the grey. A lot of times grey can even make things easier – not simpler, definitely not simpler – but easier.
But this time, I think black and white is actually my mind’s best friend.
When I think of Halfman’s actions in terms of grey: he actually loved me and respected me but got caught in his own weaknesses and stuffed up royally … I just can’t reconcile it.
No one really loves someone and treats them like shit. That is about loving themselves and to define it as love gone wrong via human failings does Love a huge disservice.
But if I consider Halfman in a black and white manner: he just wanted to sleep with me, he’d done this to other women and his wife/previous girlfriends before, saying he loved me and treating my son as if we were entering a real relationship was his way of perpetuating his ability to get what he wanted out of me …
Well that makes it a whole lot simpler to take.
I’m not thinking he was all bad in any way. That isn’t black and white, but reading his love by his own definition rather than mine – as a self centred desire to be satisfied – that doesn’t hurt nearly as much.
I can even read some of his actions and words – in hindsight – as quite clearly those of a fraction of a man who was outside of emotion and rationally working towards the goal of having me on hand for a root and some tenderness as he wished.
The way he went from a tortured confession and kisses to ‘would you be willing to come back to my place’.
The phone call he took at work before I really knew him where the tone of his voice and the words he used said to my subconscious mind: that man is not talking to his wife and he’s having it on with whoever that is.
(I dismissed that thought immediately and only remembered it a few days ago.)
And, of course, that wonderful moment after we’d slept together the first time and he lay in his enormous black-sheeted, ridiculously over-pillowed bed and said: Do you think less of me now that you know I cheat on my wife? … Not that I’ve ever done this before of course.
Of course.