I've reached that point post-breakup where I'm angry, but I realize I'm being totally irrational. When I break up with someone and I say I'd like to remain friends, I mean it. If I don't want to remain friends, I don't say that. If I'm the dumper, I leave it up to the dumpee, but I do, after a couple of weeks, let that person know, "Hey. I meant it about being friends. Just let me know when you're ready."
If you don't mean that shit, don't say it. I realize it's irrational of me to be angry right now that I haven't heard from Cowboy at all, despite him being the one who, unprompted, told me that he really wanted us to remain friends, and despite him saying he missed me when I drunk-dialed him a couple of weeks ago. I totally understand that most people don't actually mean those things. They say them out of guilt or in a desperate attempt to soften the blow. I know this. I also know that even if he did mean it at the time, perhaps he's changed his mind. Or perhaps he's thinking he should wait a while longer before contacting me. I KNOW THIS. But I'm still angry.
Again, let me stress that I know I'm being irrational. But not even getting a simple, "how are you?" text makes me feel forgotten, lied to, used. It makes me feel like all the lovely stuff he told me when we were together was a steaming pile of shit and really, he was just using me as fun and games to distract and amuse himself after his breakup. I find that is often my role in the dating world, and despite telling him this up front and expressing my concern that I would be a post-breakup fling, and his assurances that this was not so, that he was over it, that he was super duper into me, et cetera, et cetera, my sweet old et cetera... it was once again my role. Not even attempting to stay in touch just seems to drive that home. That all the things he said during the breakup were just spawned from his guilt over the fact that he had, in fact, only wanted me for fun.
That's where I'm at right now. Not terribly pleasant, but so it goes. It's been almost 3 weeks since my heart and my hope were both once again shattered by some guy who came along and made me believe when I'd given up on believing, and every time, friends, it gets harder to deal with. This guy was particularly convincing, and I do think he's "one of the good guys" and at some point, however brief, he really did care about me. I was ridiculously happy for a minute, so it's taking me longer than I'd like to get past it. GOOD TIMES ALL AROUND, GANG.
But that's sad and mopey and my heart is still disgustingly broken over the whole thing (what the eff, me? get better already!) so let's talk about Texas instead! Because I went there! Hooray!
Okay, this part isn't supposed to be also sad and mopey but I did go for my aunt's funeral. I didn't know this aunt very well, but she was sweet and I liked her. She's my dad's oldest sister, so I wanted to be there for him and for my grandmother - that's gotta be rough to survive your children.
Anyway, I have Texas stories! My immediate family is not redneck-y like people expect when they hear I grew up in Texas. Yes, I often went to school near fields of cows. Yes, my childhood dog once faced down a longhorn. Yes, my dad wears cowboy boots and I'm pretty sure he used to wear bolo ties. But we lived in cities and I didn't learn to shoot a gun until I dated a redneck in college and I never ate possum. My parents - especially my dad - have the accents and vocabulary you'd expect, but I do not.
My parents are also really religious. They don't swear (short list of words I wasn't allowed to say: butt, crap, sucks, pee, poo/p, darn, gosh) and they go to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. Sometimes there are Bible study meetings in there, too. I'm not religious. I don't get it and I never have. I was raised that way, but as I confessed to my mom last year (because she was badgering me), the whole reason I was "so involved" in the youth group as a teenager was because that was the only social life I was really allowed to have.
All this is to lead up to me saying that when I visit my parents, I try to schedule my flights such that I can avoid Sunday. This time, I wasn't able to do that. Sunday morning, driving to church - to my grandmother's church, an hour away - we listened to not just gospel music, but bluegrass gospel music. I had no idea bluegrass had such a varied subset of musical genres. On the way home from the airport Saturday night, I heard a bluegrass version of AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." I couldn't stop laughing (and it didn't help that we passed a restaurant called Hot Biscuit. HOT. BISCUIT. $3.99 breakfast advertised on the sign. Who doesn't want to go there??).
Also on the way to church, I listened to my parents have a 20 minute conversation about my dad's infected toenail. No joke. If that's what being married for almost 40 years is like, you can keep it.
At the Mexican restaurant we went to Saturday night, the kids' menu offered up the delicious-sounding options of "Hamburguer" or "Chese burguer."
Somewhere along the highway, we passed a small slew of election signs. One of them proudly declared "VOTE PRO LIFE: STOCKMAN."
Every so often, when winter just will not let up around here, I start dreaming of moving back to Texas. And every time I go back to Texas, all I can think about is how much I wish I could come back here - but bring the "winter" weather and the restaurants with me. HOT BISCUITS, Y'ALL.
HOT BISCUITS!!!!!
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