A Storied Past

Last week, in a super fun fit of self-pity and frustration, I took down this whole blog like a little bitch. Two people noticed, one of whom was my ex-husband. I promised him that if I started this blog back up again (hi!), I would specifically mention that he is "only gay 2 days out of the year." No, I'm not going to give that any context. Just keeping my promises here, people.

So now I'm back in a better head space and I'm thinking how I missed writing, and sure sometimes I get irritated that the things I have to write about are not necessarily happy things - they are mostly stories about how I was treated poorly, how I made bad decisions, how I did something really fucking stupid - but right now I'm thinking, so what? They're still MY stories.

Part of the reason I killed this thing is that I felt like it was turning into more of a LiveJournal situation, which was not what I wanted. I have a paper journal if I want to whine about my life, and hell, I'm pretty sure I still have my LJ account (which I used from 2001 to about 2008ish), somewhere out there in the never-fully-eraseable Internets. I started trying to think of more stories I can tell, and I thought of one! Hooray!

Sometimes I will casually mention in a conversation "the guy who moved out while I was at work one day." This is a thing that happened. And there you go, there's your story.

Okay, I guess if you need more info... our story begins in a faraway land called Colorado, back in 2003. My ex-husband and I separated for the fourth and final time in October of that year, shortly before my 24th birthday. (I know, you'd think the fact that we went through 3 previous breakups, 2 of which were prior to us even getting married, would have taught us something, but hey! we were young and naive and okay yes we were just fucking stubborn morons, okay? I think he will probably be laughing and agreeing with this when he reads it. So let me just add that I wish someone had danced up to one or both of us and slapped us across the face with a fish.)

So, yes, breakup. Separation. Planning to be divorced. I stayed with a friend for a couple of weeks, then got my own place just around Halloween. In this little one-bedroom apartment, I slept on a pile of sleeping bags on my living room floor, because my bedroom was full of cages. At the time, I'd been working at PetCo for a year or so and had, in that time, brought home pretty much every slightly-imperfect critter I could. There were bunnies, hamsters, gerbils, tarantulas, mice, yada yada yada, plus I had the wonderful cat that I still have, and for a period of time I was cat-sitting a friend's little calico. It was a full apartment.

Shortly after the separation, I began rebound-dating a stockboy at work. You've been there/done that, right? It's mere weeks after a huge life-changing breakup, your emotions are fucked all to hell, and someone reasonably attractive is nice to you. OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU STAY WITH ME ALWAYS! is a pretty common rebound knee-jerk reaction to that situation. This is why you should not try to date anyone for at least a couple of months after a big breakup, kids. How long you wait totally depends on you and how you're feeling and all that, but really, this is ridiculous and my own downfall for the last 10 years as I've continually dated guys who are freshly single and SOOOO not ready to mingle. (barf at that phrase)

In this case, though, it wasn't me who panicked, realized things were moving too fast or that I wasn't ready. And in fact, there is far more crap drama to this story, too. Back story: Scott had previously dated the operations manager at our store. I was a shift manager, and this 20 year old was promoted above me because the general manager, and I quote, "felt sorry for [20 year old] because she's a single mom." It was definitely not because of her kind, fair, and professional approach to her job.

When Scott broke up with her, she began a campaign to get him fired. Claiming he was doing a poor job... that he was stealing... that he was yelling at her in front of customers... etc etc. When she discovered he and I had started dating, she increased her efforts and succeeded. Naturally, I was next in her path. I simply stopped coming to work if I was scheduled with her, which finally led to the GM saying, "if you call in one more time, I have to fire you. It's policy."

"Am I scheduled to work with her tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Then I suppose I'm fired."

Scott was a "poor little rich boy" - his dad made loads of money and he still lived with his parents, who bought him a nice Jeep and paid for most of his shit. But he wanted out. Logical solution? He moved in with me. We were rebels! In love! And really, really broke! He spent any money he had on weed, and I paid the bills. We ate ramen and drank liquor his buddy got for us from the casino he worked at. Scott taught me what "wake and bake" meant, and I clung to the companionship and the perceived notion that I, as used and damaged goods, could still be worthy of love.

We both got seasonal jobs near Christmas and made ends meet. We spent Christmas day playing nickel slots at the casinos to get free drinks and hot dogs so we could eat something other than ramen. I'd met his family but he refused to tell them we were anything but roommates, claiming he was afraid they would find out (some magical way) that I was still legally married. I went along with it.

New Year's Eve came. He wanted to go to a party at his sister's house, but I didn't - I knew if we went there, we couldn't kiss at midnight because I was supposedly just his roommate. We had a small fight; he went to her house, and I went to my friend Meg's. Meg and I got sloshed, called my parents and tried to pretend we weren't sloshed, and smooched at midnight. One of my favorite New Year's celebrations to this day, honestly. The next morning I went home and found Scott there, building a fire in the fireplace (I mean, you know... as opposed to setting fire to all my belongings or something).

Scott and I kissed and made up, I thought. We both apologized, he said everything was fine, and after a quick nap I went to work.

When I got home, Scott wasn't there. Enough of his stuff was still there that I didn't know yet what had happened. I tried calling him, thinking he was just out with friends. No answer.

I tried again later. No answer.

Three days passed with no sighting of or call from him. I was going crazy. He wouldn't answer, and his seasonal job had ended so I couldn't stalk him there. Eventually I realized his duffel bag and some of his clothes were missing. Finally on the 3rd day, Meg called me. She'd spotted him in his Jeep with a friend of his, in the shopping center where she worked.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I don't remember exactly what happened because hi, this was 9 years ago, but knowing me, I likely called him again and left a very angry voicemail. My rage? My rage is BIG. I am not one for controlling my anger or making rational decisions when pissed off and/or hurt. This is not news if you've been reading this blog. So, I quite probably left an irate voicemail, and I also very definitely changed the locks on my door - which I'm sure my apartment complex managers just loved when they found out. 

Then, having ended both seasonal jobs (oh yes, I was working two jobs, to support us), lost my roommate/boyfriend, and facing a divorce, I did what any fucking idiot 24-year-old girl would do: I took half a bottle of sleeping pills and posted some nonsense to my LiveJournal.

That part there is another story for another entry, but at some point Scott called to see about coming back for the rest of his stuff. I survived and he went on to be an even bigger asshole, and I an even bigger idiot (yeah, I took him back, and then after I moved he waited less than a week before once again evading my phone calls and disappearing from my life) (about 4 years later he found me on MySpace [remember that website?] and sent me a message apologizing and yada yada and I basically said "That's nice, fuck off" because really what the HELL) (I'm in my 3rd parenthetical comment now because I really like them and also I'm not totally sure where I was planning to go with my original sentence so look! distractions! shiny!).

So THAT big long story is The Story of "the guy who moved out while I was at work one day." You're welcome (because I'm sure you now feel considerably better about your own life, right?).