a thousand little cuts

this part of the break up is called: if you didn’t want me to talk shit, maybe you should have treated me better.

oldest lesson on earth: be kind to the poets, musicians, and writers.

i am a LONGTIME fan of the canterbury tales and deeply admire how savagely chaucer roasted people. 

we have indeed reached the anger portion.

most commonly uttered phrase: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

him, clueless: if we break up, take your shit, and you’re gone. no back and forth. once you’re gone, you’re gone.

me, a virgo: bet.

nine months. NINE MONTHS. and you don’t know me at all. you think i respond to threats like that? you think when i finally speak up, when i finally started this discussion i was just *saying* things? you think whatever i brought up hasn’t already been through hours and hours of internal review and consideration and judgement and an entire committee of therapy tools, spirit guides, and journal entries? that i’m not fully aware of and prepared for all the possible outcomes of this scenario? like i haven’t already planned out, sat with, and come to terms with what rocking the boat could mean? 

nine months and you have no clue what a sentence like that *actually* says? you want to play tough? you don’t care? you can just be over it? you can just be done super tough guy?

BET.

here’s the reason my partnership ended after nine months: i asked him, point blank: “do you even like me?”

he couldn’t answer.

which is answer enough.

that seems pretty cut and dried on the surface, but what, after nine months, made me realize he doesn’t, in fact, even like me?

the death of a partnership came from a thousand cuts.

the first one, a literal thousand financial cuts. i’m a bookkeeper. keeping track of numbers is what i do. i budget to the penny every month. i work six days a week and closely, CLOSELY watch my dollars to make sure it stretches. and so, i ran the numbers: over a thousand dollars a month. A THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH. groceries. gas. weed. bar tabs. weekend trips. 22-27% of my monthly income. YES. I COUNTED. i did the literal math. one and a half days of my six day work week.

it started out simple: i would give him money for groceries, he would cook meals. nice. mutually beneficial. he had just graduated college, wasn’t working, and loved to cook. PERFECT. but somehow we always needed to stop by the store for just a few things. somehow cooking became a thing he hated to do. somehow hundreds of dollars a month for groceries morphed into maybe 3 dinners a week. somehow i was seeing him buy racks of ribs, pork loins, big expensive foods that i never saw prepared, for me at least. food he was cooking, selling to people, and pocketing the money for.

it started as picking up one or two bar tabs when i knew he was tight on money. that just became the standard. and he was killing a lot of time at the bar, almost every day, waiting to pick me up after work. that’s a lot of bar tabs.

because, oh yeah, he was also using my car. his car stopped working before winter and mine just sits in a parking lot all day, why not let him use it? help him get to appointments at the VA. help be able to drive out the base and get cheaper groceries. make it to his meetings at worksource. let him have time to drive out to the college campus and connect with his former professors about possible jobs. help run errands. help him find work, connect to people, get out of his house during the day. but, of course, i was still paying for the gas. and the oil changes. and the tires. and the repairs (how the fuck do you break a sunroof screen?).

weed purchases doubled. dinners out doubled. heating bills doubled (i helped pay for his, since i was there so much). inflation crept in and money drained away quicker than the paychecks hit every two weeks.

a thousand financial cuts every month.

a partner who is more than happy to receive yet is both unwilling and unable to contribute is fucking brutal.

but, you know, i care. i know what it’s like to be poor. i know how bad it sucks to always be broke. how NICE it would be to have someone come in help cover some expenses. i know what it feels like to work 6 days a week and still be stretched thin. i *thought* it was mutually beneficial. i *thought* he cared about contributing as much as i did, this was just a rough stretch for him. all the sciences cut during this administration made it hard for him to find work. it would level out eventually.

or not. turns out a shitty attitude, a god complex, and doing interviews with the bong on the coffee table may not have helped with the job search. but, i digress.

speaking of caring, how do you date someone who literally, repeatedly says “...I DON’T CARE,” when you try to talk? when you try to talk about a phone call you just had with your brother: “I DON’T CARE.” when you try to share a story about something that happened to you : “I DON’T CARE.” when you try to discuss a news headline that caught your interest: “I DON’T CARE.”

but gods help you if you don’t remember every cousin, aunt, uncle, distant family member, random childhood friend, military co-worker, college professor, random bar person ever mentioned. if you don’t recall every god damned confusing, facts inflated, half true story you’ve ever been told, and there’s a LOT of stories being told.

when the caring only goes one direction, intentionally, repeatedly, brutally, it sucks.

not caring hurts, sure, but also: caring too much about dumb shit hurts too.

among the thousand cuts: you talk too loud, you mumble when talking, you talk too much, you talk to yourself, you laugh too loud, you’re always wrong. always. about everything. you’re embarrassing, you sit down too hard, you walk too loud, you sleep too loud, you sleep too restless, you sleep too warm, you close car doors/trunk too loud, you drive too fast, you drive too slow, you hit too many potholes, you swerve too much, you do everything too slow, you take too long in the shower, you don’t rinse off dishes, you take too long rinsing off/doing dishes, you’re not pretty, you’re too big, your hair looks bad like that, you wear your clothes wrong, your house smells bad, your furniture is bad, your whole house is bad, your cooking is bad, you can’t make coffee or toast correctly, you can’t open/close curtains correctly, you can’t clean off the coffee table quickly enough, you can’t sit in a chair correctly. every single one of those things snapped at me. chiding. insulting. cutting.

that’s a lot of fucking things to hate about one person. to be annoyed by. to care, the wrong way, about.

and so i asked: do you even like me?

and here we are.

why would i stay somewhere i’m not liked? why would i stay somewhere i’m too much? why would i stay?

why was i driving across town to sleep alone in someone else’s bed? why was i interrupting my sleep patterns, living out of a go bag, adjusting my routines and schedules when _I_ was the one working 6 days a week? why was _I_ paying for someone to be self admitted “very expensive” with no contribution?

are you fucking kidding me? you sit next to me, after the break up, and openly admit: “i know i am, i was very expensive.”

YOU KNEW THAT? and i, stupidly, didn’t until i ran the numbers. he just KNEW that and went ahead being “very expensive” and expecting me to cover it.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

i was working 6 days a week for you to knowingly be too expensive? you kept telling me you wanted me to cut back hours so we could have full weekends together WHILE BEING TOO EXPENSIVE? you kept talking about how you knew i was exhausted working all the time AND KEPT BEING TOO EXPENSIVE? you sat in a bar, with _MY_ car outside, drinking on _MY_ tab, waiting to pick me up from work? like it was some kindness or achievement? valiantly picking me up from work. IN MY CAR. so we could go back to the bar and i could pay your tab?

*sigh*

and, since i’m airing all the dirty laundry, let’s talk about laundry: how does a feminine, too small for me, not a brand i’ve ever seen, cropped hoodie sweatshirt suddenly show up in the laundry?

and why is there a ring, that also doesn’t belong to me, in my livingroom? a too small (doesn’t even fit my pinky) moldavite (a stone i avoid at all costs) ring. ironically: the stone of transformation and change.

whelp.

transition and change did come from it, but that was about 6 straws after the final straw. i was already out the door when the universe added that little nugget of information.

confirmation. salt in the wound. an extra kick in the teeth on the way out the door. same thing.

AND ALSO,

the rage, she keeps coming,

AND ALSO: get the fuck out of here with the passive aggressive horse shit.

remember his whole line about once you’re gone, you’re gone?

tell me then, why is he the one reaching out?

a few sappy songs in a spotify message. he misses me, he loves me. REALLY? FUCKING REALLY? songs on spotify? REALLY?

a tiktok video about how you can tell how unhappy people are by the chaos they create with a message “so, thanks for that.” are you trying to blame my leaving for creating chaos? what chaos? the chaos of having to explain how you fumbled SO BADLY? that’s your chaos. not mine. 

a text message about the moon voyage, a shared interest. cool. i like the moon. are we trying to be friends now? what was the point of that? i’m already reading and watching every article and story. 

a text catty message: thanks for commercials on spotify again. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?? ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME. yeah i quit paying for spotify. yup. it wasn’t an easy decision either. i know how annoying the commercials are, especially when they interrupt a meditation, or a healing frequency playlist, or ALL THE TIME. commercials are annoying. i know how nice it is to be able to unlimited skip. i know the benefits of paying for spotify BECAUSE I PAY FOR IT. pay for your own fucking spotify and miss me with the shitty messages.

a late night phone call asking for a ride because he missed the last bus. if you can’t leave the bar in time to catch the bus, why am i leaving my warm home and rocking chair to drive your ass across town back home. and why are you trying to give me all your life updates while i do so? and why in the holy fuck are you even pretending like you want to hug me? you’ve steadfastly avoided all physical contact with me for months. no hugs, no kissing, sleeping on the couch, sitting on the opposite side of the couch. and NOW you pretend you want to hug me? fuck all the way off. i fucking specifically asked for touch as something i really needed coming out of covid and living alone. i’m severely touch starved, specifically asked for touch several times, and NOW?? OVER A WEEK AFTER EVERYTHING IS OVER, now you suddenly pretend to want to hug me? fuck. all. the. way. off.

a message asking to use the car to grocery shop. hope you don’t plan on using my money. i already grocery shopped for myself, for actual meals i will eat, that i will prepare for myself. 

like, pick a lane dude. do you hate me? do you want me? or do you want access to the resources i provided for you?

we all know the answer to that last one. who needs to buy the cow when you can get the car payment, insurance coverage, oil changes, tires and gas money for free?