I paged back through my entries, and I find that someone read an entry from over a year ago.  It was bittersweet to say the least.  D still told me regularly that he loved me.  That was enough to tear new holes in my heart and rip opening healing wounds.  The tears didn’t fall, though.

Angel me sat next to me, listening for the rant to start.  I remained silent.  I paged through some more old entries, sighing deeply.  He had told me that he loved me a great deal back then.  He had spent a great deal of time comforting me and making sure that I knew I was loved.  That was the kind of thing that made me question myself when I thought that he was playing me.  He put a great deal of effort into keeping me handy.

Angel me shifts in her seat, waiting for my silence to break.  I read through an entry a second time and sigh, “It was all lies, you know.  He certainly played me for the fool.”  I laugh bitterly, “Look at the effort he put into keeping his piece of ass coming over to service him regularly.”  I’m a little disgusted at how gullible I was and it comes across in my rant, “I’m such a loser to be taken advantage of.  How stupid could I be?  How desperate to believe such shit?”  I shake my head and take a breath to start anew, but Angel me lays a hand on my arm.

“Enough,” she says, “You’ve beaten yourself up enough.  You believed because he was convincing.  Maybe he believed it himself.  Maybe he started to drive you away because he had gotten in too deep.”  I look at her with disbelief, “He drove me away because I was not what he wanted.”

“Then why does he continue to follow you?” Devil me asks, “He still checks.  He still responds obliquely.  He’s still waiting for an opening, a way in.  He’s the desperate one.  He’s the one who feels the loneliness the deepest.  You have things to do, he doesn’t.  You have kids and work to occupy you.  He doesn’t have the obligations that you have.”

Angel me nods, “You’re nearly ready to spread your wings.”

But where will I fly?  Who will I fly with?  It doesn’t appear that anyone wants to be with me.  Devil me hears my thoughts, “It doesn’t matter, because you’re free.” 

It’s funny how confining freedom feels.  It doesn’t seem like that anyone is on the same page as I am.  I feel like I’ll be alone forever, but it doesn’t frighten me.  I’ve forgotten what it feels like to sleep curled into another.  I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be touched and kissed.  It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it feels empty.  My heart full of holes and my body transparent for the wind to whistle through. 

With my odd work schedule, Saturday often becomes the day that I must squeeze all my errands in.  All morning I spent taking the cat to the vet, running to the new house, running to the pet store for supplies.  The afternoon was spent searching for the discount mattress store and buying new furniture for the living room.  I took the boys with me and we spent 2 hours sitting in perfect living rooms.  We settled on a truly comfortable set.  They had it in expresso brown so I was sold.

Then we ran more errands, hit the liquor store (whoo hoo…just kidding), the fabric store, WalMart.  We got home and I quickly fixed dinner and started laundry.  I checked the social networking site.  J lit up my phone with a text, “You coming out tonight?”  No.  I’m busy and tired.  J has agreed to not check me in at the bars when we’re out.  The experiment he did was a bit disturbing.

J was checking me in whenever we all went out.  D would comment on it.  The bar was not far from D’s house, but it wasn’t the caliber of place that D usually frequents.  He prefers the more casual bars near the water.  The clientele isn’t any classier, but that’s where the fair weathers go.  As a joke, J checked me in one evening when I had no intention of going out.  I wasn’t there, and when I finally commented on it a couple hours later, I noticed that D hadn’t made a peep.  Last Thursday, J and I met a friend at the bar.  Thirty minutes later, D commented on it.  J smirked and said, “Your friend likes it that we’re out.”  Then he showed me the comment D left, “There was only one time he didn’t have anything to say, but you weren’t here anyway.”  F excused herself to go to the restroom.  I looked at J, “He didn’t comment because he knew I wasn’t here.”  J looks puzzled, then it dawns on him, “He does a drive by to see if your car is here.”

K agrees, “He’s going to make a move again.  He really doesn’t want to let you go, even if he doesn’t want to apologize.”

I can’t win…

I yawn constantly tonight.  I check his page and leave an unmistakably nasty comment, because I’m good at nasty comments. 

I’m trying to make him “delete” me.  I can’t imagine that he will, but I hope that he will….For some reason I don’t get that option when I look at his profile….

I check in on the social networking site one last time before I hop in the shower.  I’ve become obsessive about checking the inbox.  Two messages await, one from a friend who has a medical question.  The other is from a woman who has an obsession with J.

At the same time, my phone lights up with a text from J.  He’s stayed in for the night.  We all did.  The weather left the roads slick and unsafe.  We’ve all become careful in our middle years.  We’re all doing our drinking at home.  I tell him that his ears should be burning because someone is asking about him.  He replies that she’s a little wacky.  I key in replies to her, and replies to J in turn.  It’s close to 1 am, so what I’d really rather do is get cleaned up and hit the hay.  Instead, I yawn.

Then the woman turns hateful and scary.  I text J, “Is she friends with M?  Because she’s really going off the deep end badmouthing you.”  He doesn’t know, so I quickly check.  No.  J calls, “She’s probably drunk.  She gets trashed every night, you know.”  I have trouble redirecting her, but finally I find the magic words.  She calms down.  Then I tell J that he’s a nut magnet.  This woman sounded so much like R that it was frightening.

Then J tells me that he believes that D is checking in on my page constantly.  D had told me that he wasn’t checking in every day.  He was growing tired of the dramas and God-botherers who populated their page with Bible verses and Thomas Kinkade artwork.  I agreed, but argued that the spiritual had a right to post what they wanted to share.  If he didn’t like it then he could “hide” those friends’ posts.  I found myself drawn to the pages I had been invited to join by people who only knew me online.  The pages were run by admins who were irreverent and witty and oh so brilliant.  I made new friends there, freelance writers, screenwriters, theater people, comedians.  Pages with only 34 members.   We “get” each others humor so well that any post turns into a hysterically funny thread as each of us adds our comments.  The groups are closed so members are added through invitation only.  Very little drama to be had, and generally left me wiping tears from laughing so hard.

D wasn’t interested, and it occurred to me that he had gone to college with the intention of working in theatre.  I had said nothing about what these people did for their bread and butter, but he’d likely checked out their pages as they added me as friends and commented on my posts. He was not very pleased about the way some of them flirted, even though I reassured D that it was innocent.  Most of these people lived states away, in NY, in CA, or farther away…in Europe and Asia.  It wasn’t as if they’d turn up on my doorstep looking for a date.  The flirting only escalated when photos of me got posted, because I usually use art photos for my profile photo.  I always chalked up the flirting to shock at seeing the person behind the posts.  I certainly didn’t take any of it seriously.  Why the hell should D get so bent out of shape?

J asks me if D’s tried to contact me recently.  I tell him that he hasn’t but that I’m afraid he’ll turn up somewhere when we’re all out.  “You can’t let fear keep you hostage,” he says, “Besides you know that C and I won’t let him near you.”  They can’t be everywhere though.  And D can walk out and wait by my car and catch me there. 

“He checks your page constantly from his phone.  He wants a word, a sign, that you have softened your heart,” J says, “He thinks he’s being sneaky but he gives himself away because he doesn’t realize how easy it is to see who haunts your page.  He’s a big fat ghost, hiding in the closet.”  J giggles at his own wit.  It IS a funny visual and I giggle too.  “K is right.  He’s not through with you, but he can’t make it right either.  He’s too arrogant to apologize, but he’s got to miss you pretty bad.”

I’m sure he does sometimes, because I miss being touched too.  I don’t miss being treated badly though. 

The gray sky drizzles rain as if we’ve been transported to Washington state.  Cars pass by on the road, constantly.  It amazes me how much traffic passes in a day.  It certainly wasn’t like that when I was a girl growing up here.  I look out the front window every few minutes because I’m expecting delivery of some Chinese food.  I can’t muster the energy to cook.  I don’t want to go shopping.  I don’t want to go out at all.

The sky matches my mood, sad and restless, ready to cry again.  There are no tears.  There were no tears last night, when D got his last word in.  I let him have his last word without reply.  I don’t have to reply anymore.

I’ve sent him away for good.

Angel me looks at me, her face unreadable.  “What?” I ask, “He can’t mistake it when I tell him to forget me and that I’ll run if I ever see him.  That I truly believe that he hates me…”  My voice trails off.  She walks across the room to the window and gazes out at the clouds.  For a long time she says nothing.  I look at Devil me, but she’s silent too.  They aren’t disapproving, but there is a sense that they’re both holding something back, searching for words.  I begin to wonder if I’ve screwed up again, “What is my mistake this time…..?”

Devil me taps the screen, “Sending him away for good in text, and promising to run away from him IF you see him.”  She ticks them off on her fingers, “He can’t call without losing face.  You’ve let him know that he can’t email or text.  The only way he’ll get back in your graces is to do the very thing you fear the most.”  The weight of her words settle in like lead. 

J and C are good for “checking” me in when we’re out.  They do it to let people know where to find us.  Recently, D would check with J to see if I was there.  All he needs to do is check for the check in. 

Devil me looks at my concerned face, “He’ll just turn up.  For all your growling and snarling, he knows that if he can take you in his arms, you’ll be lost.  You can’t watch every door.  You can’t be on your guard all the time.  He can turn you back with a touch.  He’s done it before.”  Angel me nods. 

“He’s not going to give you up that easily,” K had said. 

I paged through earlier blogs that chronicled the ups and downs of my relationship with D.  Even when he’s walked away, he’s been the one to turn up somewhere, or to ease me into returning through honeyed words.  The deal is sealed when he takes me in his arms. 

“It’s not just the chase that he likes,” K had said recently, “It’s the victory when he wins you back.  It’s got to be pretty nice knowing that he’s got that power over you.  That he can win you back.”  He told me that he felt like D was more patient when it came to me, “He’s got all the time in the world.”

He does.  He knows I detest dating.  One of the nurses I work with asked one of the single nurse anesthetists why he didn’t date a nice girl like me.  He looked at her stunned.  His last wife was Asian, so I imagine that he probably doesn’t find me attractive.  We both blushed, and I tossed out a save, “Talk about awkward, huh T?” 

The banter that goes back and forth at work is only that.  I won’t say that no one notices me.  One of the Physician Assistants flat out stares at me when he comes to assist the surgeons that he works for.  He’s a good looking guy, but he’s married, so it’s nothing but someone checking me out.  A few of the physicians light up when I walk in the room, but that’s as far as it will likely go.  That’s fine with me.  It’s flattering, but I doubt that it means anything.  Still, it’s a nice little boost to the ego.

“She’s a nice catch, don’t you think?” my colleague teased, “She’s brilliant, funny, and is lovely to boot!  You should ask her out!”  He hides behind his newspaper, “No comment.”  I giggle and tell him that she’s only teasing, that he’s safe with me, safe from me. 

I think about all of that while I page through blogs.  It makes me feel very alone, and sad. 

“You know he watching and waiting,” Angel me says as she closes the blinds, “He’s wondering if it’s really over.  He knows that he can win you back with a touch.  Are you going to be more careful this time?  Or will you slip and break cover, so that he catches you.  He wants you back, you know.  That’s why he tried to make ‘casual conversation’.”

Devil me laughs.

I just look distressed.  Devil me stops laughing long enough for me to notice her eyes sparkle, just like mine, “Whatever you want.  He’ll never be the lover you want him to be, but he’ll be attentive if you let him in….at least for a little while.”

I nod, eyes sad.  Fatigue settles over me like a blanket.  I believe I’ll shower and go to bed early after all.

They know me well. 

The alarm buzzes, pulling me from sleep long enough for me to swat the snooze button, and drift off for 10 minutes more.  At the 9 minute mark, my eyes open, focusing on the digital read-out, daring it to buzz and then sighing, I reach over and shut it off.  I wake the kids, give them their medication.  My oldest has a migraine.  It’s bullshit, but he’s afraid of his brother being alone with me, “What if he has a seizure and you need help with him?  He’s bigger than you mom.”  They’re both taller than me, outweigh me, too.

I don’t feel like arguing the point.  I have calls to make.  I lay down to catch a few hours sleep until the offices open.  My phone jars me awake.  It’s H.  We discuss a few things, what I need to do today.  There is no “we”.  I hang up when he says goodbye.  Sleep.

The phone rings again.  It’s the school nurse.  More debriefing is necessary.  I talk to her for 25 minutes, and when I hang up I begin the process of calling physicians so that we can get appointments in place.  The primary doctor can see him today.  The specialist can see him next week.  We stop by the school to get his backpack.

The school secretary informs me primly that they have an immunization record but no record of a physical.  I brought all that paperwork in when he had the appointment.  Special paperwork is required when a student has epilepsy.  I filled it out months ago.  The school nurse comes out of the clinic to talk to me.  She introduces herself, she just started there a few months ago.  I ask about the nurse who had worked there before, and she stammers and looks embarrassed.  I look at the secretary who shakes her head.  The nurse who had worked there before was one of the people who reported me to DCF for neglect.  It was unfounded.  They weren’t going to tell me what happened to her.  I told them that I would get a copy of the physical to them after he was seen for this year’s check up.

There is only 6 weeks left for the school year.  I have no intention of bringing them a copy of his physical.  I will be dropping that off at the school he will be attending in the fall.  They have an immunization schedule, and obviously he couldn’t have been immunized at his pediatrician’s office without having a physical examination.

We get home and I begin the process of making calls.  I talk to one of the supervisors at work, and work out the details for how I will work around my son’s appointment next week.  I will have to go in early and leave late.  I let H know that we will have to work with each other so that I can take our child to the specialist.  He’s reasonable.  He also asks for my help with some statements he’s received, bills.  He’s having trouble understanding what they’re billing for, so he sent nothing.  He’s not sure if it’s gone to collections.  No one else can make sense of it either. 

I sigh.  It’s obvious that he’s shared his bills with his girlfriends and friends, and they couldn’t make heads or tails out of it either.  I tell him that I’ll go over them with him, maybe he can change the oil for me.  Maybe I’ll get dinner for all of us. He tells me that I should get my will done.  His divorce attorney did his for free.  Pity really.  H is a likeable guy.  He just didn’t love me anymore.

D doesn’t either, if he ever did.  He replied that I was having a pity party.  He knows nothing of my son.  I sent him away with words.  I sent him back to his fair weather friends, because it makes me unbelievably sad to have contact with him.  I wasn’t kind.

I just want to be alone.

This morning I answered a reply from D.  More fishing, but it felt like someone picking at a scab.  I wasn’t kind, and laid it out on the table.  He had asked me about my phone, but he never calls.  I asked him why he asks about my phone or service when he never calls.  After a little artful growling I tossed out the real question:  Why does he message someone he doesn’t want?

Then I logged off, feeling sad, and went to work.  I relieved one nurse for lunch (she took an hour), and the computer froze up and appeared to lose my data.  I was astounded, ready to spit nails over my rotten luck.  We “found” my work…eventually…but my heart was pounding.  I left the room wondering if it was going to be one of those days.

I had no idea how bad the day would get.

I settled in to complete the record of another patient, while the nurse went to lunch.  My phone buzzed with a call.  I fished it out of my pocket and answered.  It was my youngest child’s school.  A panicked exchange followed while they begged me to come to the school.  My son was seizing, EMS was in route.  I flew out of the room, checked out with the relief charge person, ran out in my scrubs.  I fielded calls from the school nurse and the principal (whom I detest completely because he is a windbag who believes himself to be far wiser and important than he really is).  The paramedics attended to my unconsious child in the gymnasium.  On the interstate, his gym teacher called, and I gently asked her for more information, “It will be helpful to the physicians.”  I was patient while she recounted the games the children played, what team he was on, how many children were in his class….all irrelevant, but she had been frightened by the experience.  She liked my son a great deal.  He was a “good kid”.  My patience paid off; she got to the seizure itself, described it in detail.  I promised to call her back.

When I got to the emergency room, I scanned the parking lot for my ex husband’s truck.  Angel me whispered, “Call him”.  I keyed in his number, and he didn’t answer.  I keyed it in again, irritated.  Nothing.  I keyed in a text, non-accusatory, just the facts, gentle.  Angel me smiled.  I finished it as I walked up to the entrance, where automatic doors opened to a place of antiseptic coolness.  I was led back to my son, no visitor pass required, for my uniform and badge were identification enough.  I was granted access to areas that most visitors were denied.  Even stranger, the nurse taking care of my son was impressed that I was working in the trauma hospital, “I wish I could get in there…”  It was all familiar to me, the medications, the monitors, the protocol, the CT scan.  My ex was overwhelmed, when he arrived.  His phone was crazy with texts from colleagues and girlfriends.  I was serene, tellephoning physicians to give them the heads up, watching monitors and IVs.  H looks at me and tells me that he can’t handle the physician appointments.  I’m on my own.

Just like the medical bills.

Once we are cleared to leave, I field more calls.  One is a mutual friend of D and me.  His son goes to school with my son.  The kids are really upset, because it was something they’d never seen.  I’m very gentle with the kids.  I assure him that my son is okay.  He’s got a big mouth, and he’ll seek D out to tell him.  He means well, but he gossips.  I ask him to pray for my son, and he promises that he will.  He doesn’t say that he’ll tell D, but I know he will.

I could care less. 

When I get home I have 4 messages.  I answer 3 before opening D’s.  Good thing because he proclaims that his messages were just “casual conversation” and that I was busy having a “pity party”. 

I replied that it was hardly a pity party when I was just stating facts about what I wanted (and, really, as if he cares anyway?).  I reminded him that friends made some kind of effort, made some kind of compromise.  I wasted time and energy telling him to leave me alone and go hang out with his friends because I got my “casual conversation” elsewhere.  I was clear when I said that it hurt me when he contacted me, that he wasn’t my friend, that he had no reason to contact me. 

It dawned on me that he had replied before my son was hospitalized.  A normal person would be embarrassed if he made a dig at someone and then found out that the “friend” had a family emergency.  Devil me smiles, “Wonder how long it took for your ‘mutual friend’ to enlighten him with your current emergency?”  I smile at here, weary, “I could scarcely give a shit.”

I send texts, and make more calls.  Mostly, I just want to go to bed.  My heart is heavy for different reasons….

Yesterday was positively beastly at work.  The computers are proving to be slow.  We have been enrolled in classes to teach us things that were never covered in the first classes.  I get snatched from the hallway to help in three different rooms.  By the time I get to the room I’m supposed to give a lunch break, I’ve been at work for 15 minutes.  The nurse I’m relieving is so stressed about her computer charting that she is nearly crying. 

I will end up crying myself before the day is through.

It quiets down, and we all settle in to going through supplies hunting for outdates.  R walks into the core, “I’ll be glad when I’m back on days and there’s real work to do.”  He walks out, leaving W, T and myself looking exasperated.  I reply, “I’ll be glad when he goes back on days and takes that dumbass attitude with him.”  We laugh.  Slow time is rare on the evening shift. I grab a bin full of expired supplies and dump it in a bag.  Two nurse anesthetists hurry to the desk to tell me that there is a patient in the ER who has a dislodged tracheostomy and who is bleeding profusely.  The surgeon has his finger in the patient’s  throat; they’re on their way to the operating room.

I run back to the room where a very sullen R is sorting suture and growl, “You got your wish.  We nominated you to do the case.”  A quick briefing to W and T before we all fly to get supplies and open the room.  It’s organized chaos, and R looks scared and a little miserable.  He’s not that experienced and it shows.  T scrubs in with him.  The case is more serious than we originally thought, requiring more instruments, medications, and many units of blood and plasma. 

Then we find out that there is another patient who will be coming to surgery:  a stabbing victim.  R looks apologetic, as if his earlier comment has “jinxed” us.  I can’t help but laugh.

When we are relieved to go home, R asks me how the patient came to us.  I explain, “With age, people just ‘wear out’.  Illness and poor nutrition contribute to the decline.  Then we perform heroic measures to save people.”  R had trouble with that one, “But why?  If someone is so ill, why do we spend so much time and money to keep them alive?”  I shook my head, “People never have enough time with the people they love.  They don’t want to let them go, so they try everything.  Eventually, their loved ones leave this life, but everyone tries to buy time.” 

R is young.  Who knows if he’s even listening?  We bid each other goodnight, and drive away.

Later, I meet J at the bar.  It’s pretty quiet, only a few barflies and hockey fans.  One of the waitresses stops by on her night off.  She’s brought her chihuahua, who gets passed around like a baby.  J mentions, “Who the fuck stops by their job when they’re off?”  People who have no life.  I just shake my head and say nothing.

We talk about our days.  I wax technical even if it all flies over J’s head.  He nods anyway, because he’s my friend. He checks his phone, tells me that he’s “checked us in”, then looks at it again, frowning.  I ask if everything is okay.  “Fine,” he says.  He talks about installing a new mailbox, and talking to his girlfriend who lives 5 hours away.  She blows hot and cold even though he’s ready to have a long term relationship with her.  He asks if I’ve heard from D, and I laugh, “I will never hear from D again.”  He just looks at me, saying nothing.

He doesn’t believe it.  I sigh and tell him that I keep reminding myself that I’m not what D wants.  It keeps me from calling D.  In order to contact me, D would have to apologize.  He would look like he wanted a relationship.  The noose still lies around his neck.  He’d lose face talking to me.  It would appear that he would want to be with me.  I painted him into the corner, and now he can’t easily get out.

J looks at me, amazed, then he laughs, “You’re right.  But that won’t stop him from trying.”

D makes attempts at contact, mostly just fishes, but I don’t bite. 

After I get home, I discover that D is watching, and looking for a way in.  I run it by K when he calls.  He agrees.  Then he laughs.

Later…

It didn’t take him long to test the waters.  He emailed a question, “You off today?”

I answered, “Yeah.” Then I logged off.  Shutting the computer down now.  Off to do chores, shopping and yardwork.  It’s not hiding from D, just getting stuff done.

Just for me, I took my time painting my toenails iridescent magenta.  Then I gave them a couple coats of silver glitter.  They looked cute and happy and ever so girly, and looking at them made me smile.  The kids just laughed and shook their head, calling them my “toes from outer space”. 

It was one funny moment during a weekend that passed too quickly.  Both of them voiced disappointment over my having to work and take call yesterday.  They didn’t get to spend enough time with me.  Saturday we had so many errands.  The house didn’t get cleaned.  But we all got haircuts, there was plenty of food, the animals were seen by the vet.  I have a new battery in my car. 

I snapped a photo of my pedicure and posted it on my social network page, just to be silly.  Two friends commented. One making fun of my imperfect feet, the other telling me how cute he thinks my feet are.  He’s got a “thing” for cute feet. 

So did D.  I probably should have thought about that before I posted the photo, but it’s probably good that I forgot and put it up anyway.  Angel me laughs, “Who cares?  As if he’d have the courage to comment?  You will not hear from him again.”

That I believe…It doesn’t get easier, but that I believe.

He checks often. 

Still not biting though….I really believe that I’m better off alone.  As long as I don’t see him face to face I don’t have to worry that I’ll be weak and go back to him….