Ready, Reset, Go! (2006-2008)

It's a memory post - haven't done one of those in a while. And it involves the ex. You have been warned.
...

2005, a Holiday party at some trendy Boston bar/club.

Was it November or December?

I'm not sure any more.
I can't even remember why I was there.
John knew someone who knew someone in real estate? Dunno.

But we were there as a couple.

I was, of course, feeling like a freak-show visiting royalty - cause, you know, I just don't go to clubs where the rich and the beautiful hang.

But, slowly, as I'd had a few drinks, I'm kind of relaxing a little, I think. I say something to John - again, I don't remember what. But it makes him respond, while holding me in his arms, "this is why I love you."

And I notice that I haven't heard those words in that way for a long time.
...

And this is around the time (early in my last blog's life) that I was starting to look at him almost as something new - like I was getting ready to start all over again with him, in a good way.

I.e., he still made me stiff and there was so much that was good there.

I was, deep down, wanting to go out to dinner or something - as if it was the first time - momentarily toss away the decade filled with sadness, loss, and regret.

I wanted to drink wine and talk about each other, not things and problems, but more like re-introducing ourselves and looking at each other like a new fresh opportunity for a great relationship. And drink more wine, then with the wine and the knowledge that I'm so lucky to have this guy with me, who was good in bed and a decent person, we'd go to "his place" and fuck. And wake up together. And be closer.
...

I hold him tighter against me and I smell the bourbon on his breath, which always seemed to work as a turn-on to me. With a stupid smile on my face, I say, "you love me enough to go home and fuck?"

And he pauses.

Then, "yes... and no."

And I can see, something is gone - or is slowly fading away.

I slowly, cautiously, let go of him.

And that's the beginning of when I knew something was about to be wrong.
...

I go through the usual chatter in my head, "I'm ugly, I'm a freak, I'm a loser, I'm too fat, I'm not muscular, etc." I don't even begin to walk down the road of where this is all really heading.

The rest of the night, I'm irritable for some reason, quick to being pissed off and going on loner walks around the club. Thankfully, it's near the end of the night, so I didn't have to be inflicted on others for much longer.
...

And that's where my existing drama intersected with blogging for the first time.

That night, I said to myself, "I am soooo blogging about this moment".

I had made a few attempts in those early blog days to remember and learn from events from the past, some of which ended badly.

But after thinking about it the next day, I said, "No. Too soon. Too close. Too... scary."

And now I remember - it was December 8, 2005. And the next day I punted, and wrote around that moment, about everything else on my mind except that.

Maybe if I'd acted fast, once I could tell something bad was coming, maybe - just maybe - there could have been a chance for me to advocate for myself, to have stopped what happened. But I wasn't ready to listen to the warning.

Then, in the months after the horrible mess that was my dumping, I slowly wrote about moments and events involving John (ex), both in the past and as things were happening.

But I never wrote about that instant when air-raid sirens first began screaming away in the streets of my mind, when I shut all the windows and shoved cotton in my ears.

So now I wrote about it.