Sunday, 09.19.2010 - 8:54 pm.
I'd been looking forward to last night for over a month. My friend Monica was debuting her band at a place that seems to be "in". It's a long drive there from my house, but I guess the "scene" (or whatever you may call the bunch of artists that are stepping forward) is moving to that city, 30-40 minutes away if I get lucky and find no traffic.
I was going with CR. I was picking him up, as usual, at a mall, but he was late and in the meantime I hung out in the supermarket, trying on sunglasses and stuff.
I was blown away by the place. It was beautiful, with a fine menu. It was very small, too, and many tables had been reserved so we had to go to the back. The back ended up being the coziest, though, a small room with a huge red sofa and a table. We couldn't hear much when the gig started, but for the same reason, it was a very private spot.
I tried to talk about Joseph, and CR and I sort of got onto the subject, but then my friend Samuel showed up and we talked about lighter things. JC, being a friend of Monica's, also showed up and he came to say hi. I wondered if he'd come with his girlfriend.
Monica came in much later. She looked gorgeous, as usual. The band began playing shortly after and while Samuel had dinner, CR and I moved to the front of the place. When we arrived, the place was empty. When the gig started, it was filled with people and there was some cool atmosphere going on. Monica has a tremendous voice and a breath-taking stage persona.
In one of my walks from the front to the back, I ran into JC again. Like in a movie, he moved sideways and I saw his girlfriend coming my way behind him. She barely looked at me, could be because she didn't recognize me or didn't react on time or is suspicious, but I said hi with a relaxed smile. Did it bother me that he was there with her? Not at all. I actually laughed to myself. How spiteful of me. More on that later.
I ran into a guy that I met through Joseph at the university. He was very friendly and crazy and took pictures with my camera. We know each other superficially, but he has good vibe.
To top the night off, Lighthouse showed up. And in the end, I didn't quite see Monica, I spent most of my time sitting on the couch, next to Lighthouse, having a conversation with him, CR and Samuel. At some point, JC came to say goodbye. "Why leaving so early?", I asked mockingly in my head. JC complemented Lighthouse on his Metroid t-shirt, and the other way around on JC's Contra t-shirt. Old school Nintendo, fostering male bonding.
Another thing that made me happy/frustrated was to have a lot of eye candy among the crowd. Nobody would turn their heads to me, and sometimes I get desperate thinking I'll never have a relationship again, but window-shopping slightly cheers me up. Ok, so it's not probable that I'll catch a good-looking guy, but at least it's possible. Anything that soothes me, right?
In the end I saw Monica kinda sorta cuddling with a pretty guy and then she drove off with him. I took CR and Samuel home, because they live closer to me than to Lighthouse (although he offered to give them a ride so I wouldn't have to, as he always does...that's a very gentlemanish thing to do).
I came home but not in such a good mood. I came angry. The little CR and I managed to talk about Joseph unleashed the anger. He didn't tell me anything new. He just told me, in a nutshell, that I gotta stop playing nice. That what he did is disgusting and the least I could do is give him the finger if/when I see him. Because, oh, yes, I will run into him one day; into him, his wife and his baby.
That's the day, he says, the day I'll hit rock bottom. Only that day. And it makes sense, that's the ultimate, dare I say it, punishment for me. So, he says, the least I could do is tell him to fuck off. He [Joseph] is even expecting that you do. CR says he did that to a girlfriend he caught cheating on him, and it was great. So, I should tell him how much he screwed me up and what a piece of shit he is.
I don't know what I'd tell him, let alone them. CR talked a lot about picturing things in my mind to prepare. About how I'd get to a red door and when I opened it, I'd find them there, doing the thing that would hurt me the most. So maybe at first, in your guided picturing of things, you'll just back off and close the door. But you'll get through. I cannot face the idea of ever running into Joseph. And not just him. It was so easy for him to move on that I don't just fear running into my ex-boyfriend; I fear running into him, his pretty wife and their baby.
That encounter is bound to happen, I'm afraid, or at least two of my closest friends say so. This city is like a small town and everybody knows everybody, e.g., Joseph's in-laws are my best friend's neighbors. So I gotta find a way to prepare for the moment and know how to act. I don't think I'd get to talk (CR says that in my guided picturing, when I talk to them, they'll talk back; those motherfuckers), but if I did, what would I say? Would I smirk and give him the finger?
The thing is, you gotta stop playing nice. You have to stop being the good girl. I know it's ok to be angry, but I haven't registered that it's ok to be angry...maybe? I suppose I'm still in denial, I'm always looking at the excuses as to why not to get angry. But as I was driving home, I stopped doing that.
By proxy, I was angry at JC. He is still with his girlfriend and that's fine. What is not fine is what he did to me: breaking up with her, using me to have a good time, dumping me and going back to her. That, I do not forgive him for. That, I'm very, very angry about, and I'm going to tell him so when we meet this week. He is a good person, but after the shit he's pulled, he isn't someone I want to keep in my life. I'm building the courage to tell him to fuck off.
It's different with Joseph, because he isn't around anymore, and I've explicitly asked CR to help me on that. Hopefully at the end of this week; he thinks I need him for that guided picturing thing, but I just need to talk. Maybe I can talk to him before I meet with JC so I can get some ideas. I also asked Victoria to have a talk about it and she's as supportive as ever of my cause. Hell, I may even talk to W, my friend/mentor/colleague. I saw him today to help him on some things of his doctoral thesis.
I asked him about my sorrow over Joseph. He said we'd talk about this more thoroughly one of these days, so he gave me a brief reply. "Pathological grief", he called it.
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