the story of us

instead of studying i decided to write down my story, and although by no means complete, at least its out of my head and on paper. maybe that will help...

She looked in the mirror, was that really her, the bags under her eyes made her seem tired, and were those wrinkles or laugh lines, she couldn’t even remember anymore. Perhaps it was the past six months, perhaps it was the past three years really, that made her think that she looked much older than her twenty-seven years should have indicated. Get your self together she said, wiping the mascara stuck in those lines, and smiled, trying to convince herself that if she could smile she had to be fine.

Stephanie took a deep breath and went to take her place back on her porch, her little safe haven. She lit a cigarette and inhaled the menthol, thinking about the events that recently transpired. If only I’d known sooner she thought out loud to no one in particular. Maybe then I wouldn’t be in this fucking predicament.

It all started three years ago with cute boy, that’s what she called him to her family, refusing to tell them his name until he asked her out. She would always show up to class a little late, making sure she could survey the room and sit in the open seat next to him, which for some reason was always open, almost like a sign that they were meant to meet. They never actually talked to each other, him probably too nervous and her thinking that she wanted nothing to do with the male gender after her last relationship. When he finally asked her out, it was a whirlwind, she fell for him far faster than she wanted to allow herself, and he was nothing short of perfect. Soon they were in medical school down the street from each other and they were inseparable, two halves of a very strange whole, that melded into what they both thought was a fairytale romance. She laughed out loud thinking about it now, they were so blissfully ignorant to what was coming, although knowing how different they were how could they not have seen it. She put the butt of her newfound habit out in the same spot as always and went back to daydreaming.

He was from California, well Russia originally, and it was as though someone bottled the west coast up, and out popped Eugene. He had blue eyes and dark hair, a quality that still makes her weak in the knees to even think about. Not too tall, but tall enough to make her five foot seven dancer frame feel safe. And his hands enveloped hers when she held them, she would hold them even when they went to sleep, just to be sure of him, she would always tell him. He’d always laugh at that, but hold them anyway, perhaps because in some way he wanted to be sure of her too. And although never important before him, his body looked like an Abercrombie model, with muscles that glistened when he got out of the shower and drove her wild. Quiet with everyone but her, they shared secrets that she never imagined telling anyone. And the two of them giggled like schoolgirls, with the type of PDA that would make other people want to walk out of a room. Who cares Stephanie thought, happiness like that should be contagious.

When she got off the plane to meet his family after over a year of dating (she’d secretly been too scared to do it before), she smoothed her hair, re-applied her lip-gloss and scanned the airport, desperate to see him after only a week apart. She’d prepared for this trip for what seemed like months, working out everyday and planning each outfit with such care, making sure to fit the part just right. She even tried to learn a few Russian words and Eugene would make fun of her Italianized version, but loving that she tried so hard. When she finally saw what she thought was him, he was hidden behind a giant bouquet of Gerber daisies, her favorite. Forgetting that she wanted to be presentable she ran over and leapt into his arms, probably flashing half of SFO her underwear, which she also coordinated with each outfit.

The drive to his parents was shorter than she’d anticipated so when they pulled up to his house, his enormous beautiful house, she panicked. What if they don’t like me she thought, amid a silent freak out, Eugene leaned over and kissed her forehead and told her they would love her. He somehow always knew what she was thinking, even if she did wear her feelings on her face 99.9% of the time. She smiled and stepped out of the car after a quick check in the mirror, just to make sure. Eugene’s parents greeted her with the most welcoming of hugs, having the same calming effect he did, must be genetic she thought at the time.

The trip was a dream, traveling up and down the coast; from Disneyland to Napa everything was perfect, just as she anticipated. When she left two weeks later to go straight to Africa she cried like a baby and no longer cared if her mascara was messed up or her hair got tumbled around. When she got home she called him immediately, do they like me, do your friends like me, do you still like me. Laughing he told her he loved her and so did everyone else, and stayed on the phone with her as she packed, crying again about how long two months would be.

The next year or so came and went, they broke up and got back together (twice) but never managed to last more than a week without calling the other to apologize, and things would go back to their fairytale. Stephanie once again wiped the tears from her eyes, maybe if we didn’t break up, maybe if he didn’t say whatever he said to his family, maybe, maybe, maybe. The words haunted her, probably more than they should considering she hadn’t even seen him in two months, but that was who she was, hopeless romantic until the bitter end, and to her it wasn’t the end quite yet.

She lit another cigarette and continued reliving their story, or at this point the more accurate word would be demise. Six months ago, six months ago I was so happy she said out loud again shaking her head. When he told her that his parents wouldn’t let them get married she tried to stay calm. Why hadn’t they said anything she screamed, letting the calm go out the window. How could they just not tell him, she sent them holiday presents and cards and he loves her, how could they just not tell him until after almost three years of dating. He told her he would fight for her, that he wasn’t giving up yet, that he wanted to marry her and have a family with her, love her until her hair went grey and her dancer body faded to that of a busy mom. She believed him, and as the months went by and they fought over stupid things, she genuinely attributed to his arguing with her, Olga. Even saying her name in her head made her heart ache.

When she moved in she thought it would get better, and despite the fighting, her love for him was just as strong as it had been the years before, probably more so since she knew what he was going through for her. Then that fight, that stupid fight! Why didn’t she just keep her big mouth shut, no she had to bring it up again. Soon he was saying it wasn’t going to work and she remembers how pathetic she was. She begged him to keep trying that she was worth it. Asking to call his mom, that maybe she could come visit for a weekend show her that she was loveable, and that her good intentions were just that, and perhaps most importantly she loved Eugene more than herself. When she spoke with her, it was as if she broke up with her for him, he didn’t even have to say anything after that. She knew it was over. They held each other for what seemed like hours, reminiscing about the things they’d done over the years, telling each other what they would miss about the other, crying and laughing and trying to delay the inevitable.

When she left the next morning, after one more night of holding hands and begging him to keep fighting, she left. As she walked away she looked back at him, and as composed as possible, told him to call her if he decided she was worth it. That was the last time she saw him.

Sitting on the porch she started to bawl, two months, two months and he hadn’t called. She knew he was gone, but hadn’t quite let go yet. Through her sobs she lit one last cigarette, she’d be done crying after that. She imagined him showing up late at night with a boom box playing her favorite song, and she would leap into his arms the same way she had on that fateful trip years ago. Maybe tomorrow she said, maybe tomorrow as she pulled herself together, tried again to smile and walked inside to brush her teeth, Eugene would never approve of her smoking.

june 17

well cyberspace id like to deem it official, i am pathetic. its been two months...two months and i am still in basically the same place i was when i left cuteboy's house on that fateful day. how is that even possible. shouldn't i be marginally improved by now? i mean my life is going by, i'm going through the motions, but my head is a clusterfuck. the other i almost lost it, i'm talking full on tears lost it during my rotation. for pete's sake that is ridiculous. that is something that crazy people do! move on already girl, right? like hello, he isn't coming back and you need to adjust to the fact that yes you are in the same city and yes he is living his life without you and sitting here wishing isn't going to change that fact. i had to be talked off a serious ledge today...i mean i was seconds away from texting him, which would have been hello disaster. and now im sitting here crying my eyes out like it was yesterday. pa.thet.ic.

i just dont know how to let go. ill tell you what i was going to text him, just so its not in my head anymore (well solely my head...its always in my head)... i miss my best friend. and i feel like im going crazy. just tell me that you miss me too. and please dont pull a eug and tell me i know or im sorry, but that yes you miss me too. period. and i wont take it as a lets get back together, i just need to know that in some small fraction, youre going through this too, and i am no longer just an afterthought.

how do people do this, just pry themselves out of each others lives as if they never existed? and poof just like that three, four twenty years are nothing but memories without the actual individual attached to them, never to be spoken to again. its horrible really, the way we dismiss our relationships with others. horrible and sad. maybe im not like the rest of the world, that for some reason its just not possible for me, and i am holding onto someone who really doesnt want to be held onto. i dont know maybe its just me babbling, hoping that somewhere out there that my crazy voice gets heard.

i havent told anyone about this blog, but in a way i hope people find out about it, not so i get committed but because there has to be someone else out there that feels this way. that feels this lost and hopeless, like their lives are on the verge of seeming useless. and for some reason will feel a little less alone. because thats how i feel right now, completely alone. like no one has ever experienced this type of hurt or rejection, that their love ended for completely the wrong reason, and they dont know to rectify it in their head. again just me babbling. ok i suppose i should go back to pretending to study, as if my effort is actually correlated to the result. welp until another day...

june 12

its funny for some reason on the 12 of every month i think about how old i am...then i think about how when i was younger i planned on being married at 24 and having kids when i was 28, a career was a given. i never thought well what if things didn't work out that way, there was no question, that was just the way it was going to happen. and now here i am 27 and 3 months, with none of the above, self loathing and re-running all the mistakes i've made, negating any accomplishments i had. my old therapist would tell me i need to change my negative view of myself and the world, concentrate on the good things. i am still going to have a career and my eggs haven't shriveled up and died yet, so the possibility of kids isn't totally off the table. and just because its not like i imagined, doesn't mean its not right, its just doesn't feel right, right now.

now i can say these things until im blue in the face, but the fact still remains, im cerebral by nature and i need things to go as planned, i am not spontaneous in that regard, and when things go differently i freak out. i simply cant adapt as i should. i know i need to work on it but its so engrained in me, that changing that integral part of me would change, well me. and that my friends is a very difficult concept to come to grips with, that your personality is self destructive and unhealthy. that being an idealist and a perfectionist is ruining my chance of ever recooperating from this mess.

i am hanging onto this fairytale, an imaginary life i've created in my mind that in all honesty simply wouldn't be attainable with cuteboy. i'd of loved to believe that his family would greet me with open arms, that his sister and i would have been inseperable and we would live happily ever after. but this would not have been the case, i would have unavoidably, albeit my greatest efforts, created a rift between him and his family, and that would have created a rift between us. perhaps love isn't always enough, perhaps it takes more than that. it takes love of course but also acceptance and a willingness to imagine life not as we planned, and to be ok with that. and i hate to say this but i don't think that he could have handled that, and no matter how much he loves/d me that is what it would have come down to. he may very well still love me and deep down want to spend the rest of his life with me, but maybe, just maybe, letting go of that dream, the same fairytale that i so desperately desire, isnt a possibility for him right now. and again albeit my greatest efforts to be enough for him, until he is able to release that image, i will never be.

heavy stuff for a sunday afternoon i am well aware, but as i've said so many times, im cerebral and it may not always work to my best advantage. until tomorrow...

june 10

well i guess technically its june 11 but same difference. i just got back from bridesmaids, it was a cute movie, but in a way it made me sad. not the actual movie, just the whole i am so depressed that i cant even get through a movie without comparing it to my own situation. silly really, the way i am behaving is pure silliness if we want to be honest. i mean while were on the whole honest boat i guess its time to admit that maybe cuteboy didnt break up with me just because of his parents, because if he did he would have come back by now, maybe part of him thought we wouldnt work either. and that makes me not only idealistic (which i knew) but jaded by my own emotions (which i really didn't). how does that happen, that one person still completely loves the other without falter while the other doesn't feel the same way? its an unanswerable question i suppose, i just wish i knew, wish that i saw what he did. maybe then i wouldn't be in such a predicament. in retrospect as much as it pains me to admit i did see him pulling away...perhaps thats what made me try to hold on stronger, only it had the opposite effect. of course i will never find out that answer, im not sure he could even tell me if he did know.

its still so hard to imagine myself with anyone else and even worse to imagine him with anyone else. i still feel him next to me, i hear his voice say i love you in my head, i am grasping at straws and nothing is coming up. and that cant be fixed, at least not for the time being. people say time heals everything, but does it? or does it just make the memory so faint that it no longer resides in the forefront of your brain, so youre able to function as if that person isnt existing in parallel probably doing the same thing. i am beginning to wonder if we ever really get over things, im pretty sure i dont. again unanswerable questions. thats part of the difficulty of losing someone and until you let go of those questions, tuck them in a corner, occasionally wiping off the cobwebs to perseverate over in the privacy of your own mind, nothing can be resolved or more appropriately repressed.

sweet dreams my beauty queens, until tomorrow...

june 9

so you would think by my absence that i was out living my life as if cuteboy never existed...but alas my friends this was not the case. i simply filled my time in wallows, questions and studying and was so exhausted that i couldn't write coherently. but fear not the public displays of wallowing and questioning are back. what has happened in the past week or so you may ask...nothing much. more of the same i'm afraid. pretending to study stalking my now very fb active ex go out and post a picture of food or drinks or something ridiculous of that sort. friend a bazillion new people. honestly i don't even know how he has time to socialize with all the time he must spend glued to his phone updating this or that. and its been confirmed...well be in LA at the same time, just as we planned, only ill be on my own lost and well alone, knowing that hes there too feeling quite the opposite. scary, huh, i know it incited quite the breakdown. although i have to admit that im getting better with the crying, i still feel that way but i think i'm starting to hide it better which is good because if one more person asks me about going on meds or seeing a doctor i'm going to blow my gasket. like i really need someone to verify that i'm depressed...um hello i think i am well aware of the signs of depression its kind of my mantra. in all honesty it scares me that i am starting to get used to looking at his life from a distance, because that means there is a very high probability that his memory of me is fading faster than...yep blanking...just fast. and insert reading in between the lines that it is actually possible to be without him and for him to be without me. i guess i knew that, i just didn't want to believe it, its scary and sad and i don't want to let go. i was so happy and letting go of that, letting go of him, letting go of my best friend, my confidante, my other half, is overwhelming. in some weird way i don't know that i want to replace it, and i know i know, i cant live alone forever, but no one is going to live up to my ridiculously high standards and i will just compare and compare until they all run away, and eventually ill be forced to settle. and that my friends is the saddest part of all. knowing in the deepest darkest corner of your heart that you wont let anyone fill those shoes so it will be forever empty, only half filled by the marginal replacement that is left to pick from. sad and awful. i wonder if he feels the same way. doubtful, i am pretty sure he let me go before i walked out the door...probably about the same time he gave me a card for our anniversary that said he couldn't imagine spending forever with anyone else. and on that note off to bed, maybe tonight ill sleep without having to line up my pillows next to me and pretend they're a person...fingers crossed, maybe tonight's the night.

june 1

yesterday was a productive day. far more so than i had anticipated so thats definately a bonus. i fell asleep reading harry potter since i figured i should start reading again, and i really do love reading. i guess thats going to be the thing i do for myself, well that and write this silliness for no one in particular to read. i wrote back to that message...just as i said short and sweet. truth be told i would have liked to write a novel but really who wants to read that. i wish i could say today has been equally as good. facebook is the devil. thats right being constantly aware of what someone else is doing and who they are friending and what they are writing is terrible for the the broken. i know i know delete him block his updates blah blah blah. it probably would be healthier but we all know that it wont happen, no matter how many breakdowns it incites or how badly i read into it. i know its silly but i started him on country...not nick. and who is this fucking girl that hes friending that has no mutual friends with him...oh and by girl i mean gorgeous perfect bodied girl that makes me feel completely inadequate, as if i didnt already. i know my ex and he is chasing that girl like there is no tomorrow. i may very well be reading into this, but the more likely of the two is i am not and he is trying desperately to throw himself into someone else to help him forget i existed. i wish i could do the same, kudos to you my friend you are far better at moving on than i. i suppose that is all part of being broken as badly as i am. i seriously am beginning to wonder how on earth i could be even partially put together again, enough to fake a life and some happiness. its amazing the things that run through my head, frightening really, youre lucky i dont share every one of them, id be committed by now if i did. i guess this is all part of it, good days and bad, tears and every once and a while a smile. maybe if i smile enough ill actually start to believe it. how am i going to live the rest of my life not talking to him, not saying i love you when i go to bed, not kissing him at red lights, or looking at him in the morning beaming because i love him as much as i did three years ago. time i suppose, time and fake smiles and eventually real ones...hopefully real ones:)

may 30

so i didnt even write last night, does that mean i was out galavanting across town with the most handsome and charming man in the universe...well no. but i was out and my good friend is quite the catch:) he does afterall put up with all my ranting, i mean hes friends with my ex too and that has got to get wearing on one's soul. so eventhough we talked about him, no huge breakdowns, just little minor ones here and there. so yesterday was a good day i suppose. no revelations, no giant well yep im over him lets move on, but no i want to find the walt whitman bridge and jump into the schukhill either (because that water is nasty and would most certainly kill me if the jump didnt).

i did however get a response from a quite pathetic letter i wrote to my ex's best friend from home in a moment of absurd weakness. i mean really who does that, and who is nice enough to actually respond to that craziness. perhaps he just feels bad for me, it was quite the display of please help me. right now i am deliberating writing him back, something short and honest. yes believe it or not i am capable of short.

so goals for today: actually learn something for my boards, possibly write back to that message and breathe...just keep breathing, the whole living thing has to follow that.

may 29

Today has been a bad day. Unproductive and painful. Seriously I cannot get passed this, why? I am making myself sick over this, I can’t eat so at least im getting a bit skinnier which should be a bonus but doesn’t even make me feel better it makes me feel worse. And now here I am at 2 pm on a Sunday already writing. i dont even know why i started this silly blog. it was my sisters idea i suppose, thinking that for some reason my writing ability would be put to good use if it were out in cyberspace or something. it should be cathartic right? but the issue is that i dont even know if it is...it doesnt bring him back, it doesnt make him question his decision and it most certainly doesnt change my outlook, which at this point is dismal at best. and id like to recant my prior entry, thinking that movies are helpful. at this point i am beginning to believe all that they do is provide false hope, a false hope that i should not have right now. i know i need to move on, to give up and say to myself, stephanie why the hell would you want to be in a relationship where the person you love cant stand up for you, where you love someone so much more than they love you, where your inlaws hate you for no reason and will never change their mind no matter how many cards, gifts and expressions of love you send them. any sane person would say good riddens, thank goodness i got out of that mess before i got into deep. yes that would make sense...now only if i could do it.

i almost started crying at the sight of parents walking their baby this morning, oh hello not normal nice to see you. and im not crying because i want a baby and think ill never have one (that is why god invented sperm banks and one night stands). no i almost lost it because that is the way i pictured my life with him, and in all honestly that is how i think he imagined it with me for a really long time. im just not sure when he stopped and i kept going for both of us...hopefully they werent too far away from each other because well then that makes me quite foolish, doesnt it.

so goal for today: breathe, fake a smile at strangers and try to concentrate on all you have right now...school. you do have boards in less than a month that and youve worked so hard for so many years it would be a shame to give up that too. i guess thats all for now, so until tomorrow....

may 28

I’m not sure whether watching ridiculous romantic movies makes me more hopeful that he will come back to me or completely hopeless that my life will ever end up with something even close. And that’s not to say that the characters in the movies have the most perfect lives in all of Hollywood creation (at least not in this one), but that they are somehow able to overcome these seemingly impossible mountains to be together. So I suppose right now I’m in limbo, the optimistic side of me, which is clutching on for dear life at this point as it has been my mainstay for 27 years now, says that he has to come back. Why would they make all of these movies if it never really happened? That would be feeding a false hope for millions upon millions of Americans, and eventually everyone would be so bitter that they would stop watching them. I mean these people are so relatable; seemingly inconspicuous characters go about their seemingly inconspicuous lives all the while living and fighting for someone else. Because if it were all easy and there were no climax really no one would see them, because that doesn’t exist (at least not for the vast majority of people out there). At some point there has to be a challenge, an illness, a parent, distance; something to make you believe that these characters could be you. I guess they never show the heart-breaks that don’t work out, the lost souls that have been so broken that they are no longer fixable, nobody wants to watch that. Then there really wouldn’t be hope, it would be saying here you’re a disaster but newsflash it doesn’t get better, you might as well hand them a gun and say shoot. I cant imagine how hard the heartbroken cling to these stories, doing just as I have just done, finding similarities so striking that you are almost forced to believe that it has to happen to you. I guess when it comes down to it today is more of a denial day than a deal with the current situation and I’m ok with that. I’m ok with going to bed thinking that there’s still a chance; that maybe our challenge isn’t over yet, because then again that means neither are we.

may 27

This is stupid…really really stupid. Why isn’t it ok to just call him tell him this and we’d live just like the fairytale id imagined? Oh Ill tell you why, because at this point I haven’t spoken to him in who knows how long (ok I know how long…again reaffirming my patheticness) and I’m pretty sure he has no anticipation of ever trying to speak to me again, let alone come running into my arms at a statement of the obvious. But really how archaic of a world do you live in that telling your children whom they can and cannot be with on the basis of instinct alone is something that is acceptable. And worse yet who are you friends with here that everyone says to you that is a fabulous idea, you’re only ruining the lives of two people, one of which is actually important to you. Or maybe not who knows, the way that he’s acting via my sorry half connection would certainly tell me otherwise. Not to mention what type of fantastic brain washer are you that you can convince your children that this is best for them, and they could plausibly believe you. Ugh and I think I have mental problems, no I just have enormous amounts of emotional baggage, and I am painfully aware of mine as opposed to them, who have no clue that there is even an issue. But I am such a sap that I still refuse to see it that way, to even conceive that that would be possible. And if it is please for the love of anything, for the love of my sanity, please let me know how. This would most definitely help me out in a huge way, and it would most definitely help my career, which I am slowly but surely killing by my lack of focus and motivation on it. So, welp olga I suppose you have won just as I said you wouldn’t do, congratulations, I am verging suicidal and I have yet to want to thank you and I still cant see the greater good…all I see is blackness, my life devoid of the light and happiness it was filled with before. So please by all means go celebrate, pour some vodka, get behind your mazarati and feel free to crash your perfect Californian life which I have been forbidden to be a part of.

may 26

I check my phone more often than the paparrazi take pictures; it’s getting to be a bit extreme. I also embarrassed to admit that despite it being exactly six weeks since I’ve even seen my ex that I still have his facebook set to my phone so I can pathetically paruse his latest outings, all of which look like something I should have done with him. The degree to my patheticness is disturbing, and yet I have no plans on changing it anytime soon. Because in some warped distorted world its my way of being connected to him, as if knowing that he’s living his life without me as I should be without him will make him want me back anymore or him knowing that I’m miserable will change his decision. For the record the logical side of me knows it won’t, the other half however is not nearly as level headed. That part of me, the idealistic hopeless romantic (which is definitely more than half for the record) still believes that our relationship is a fairytale and in fairytales the prince comes running after the princess when he realizes what a monumental mistake that he has made and they live happily ever after. I am still waiting for that fairytale. I’m still waiting for that happily ever after…I may be waiting forever who knows.

I am 27…I am 27 and single. And the man I thought, or more accurately knew, I was going to spend the rest of my life with left me because of his mother. Not in a weird Oedipus kind of way, but in a I wasn’t good enough for her baby when she met me two years ago so peace out homeslice kind of way, all with a nasty Russian accent. Her name is olga and she ruined my life, my dreams of a perfect little Californian family complete with a tan children and a house by the beach. A Russian woman named olga who met me once decided what path I get to take as if it were her decision to make, how messed up is that…how messed up did that make me? I thought I was getting a ring and instead I got the boot. Wowzers.

So where does that leave me. Do I give up and wipe the past three years out of my memory and hope to god they don’t creep up on me when I’m not looking? I don’t know how well that will work, for some reason whenever you run from feelings they end up chasing you down at the worst possible moment, its unbelievably uncanny really. Not to mention I doubt that I am at all capable of such self-restraint. At this point I am still reliving our life together over and over in my head, fast forwarding through the fights to the make ups realizing (and rationalizing) that all relationships have issues so its ok that I do that right now. I’m not saying we were perfect but in our own little way we were, fights and all. And I ask a lot of whys, why aren’t I good enough for them? Why doesn’t he fight for me? Why doesn’t he tell them to fuck off and being that judgemental makes you a bad person? Why why why. All of these are unanswerable of course but it doesn’t stop me from doing it. And of course the most popular one is do you think he’ll come back and when everyone says no, because everyone does say no, I scowl at them saying you don’t know that and he doesn’t tell anyone what he’s feeling so you cant say that. So yes I suppose this puts me in the big old land of denial. But for right now denial is all I have to hold onto, that and facebook, neither of which bring him back to me in any real sense.