i don't know

It seems everyday is a different twist on the same theme. Like I keep eating this never-ending, bitter pretzel. Today is full of pure hopelessness. I am keeping myself busy. I had lunch with a new friend today, I went to Colorado Springs to visit my dear friend (MS) last night, I don’t just sit around the house, but the feeling is pervasive. I have yet to hear from Chad, and I know it is so stereotypical twelve year old girl of me to hold my breath until a phone call, but still. I feel it is confirmation that he was simply trying to get me through till my birthday and now is done. I am sure if I texted him to say hello (or say I love you, like I want to) he would respond and seem happy to hear from me, still being the sweet Chad that he still is. I imagine he is puling away to try to help me. Of course, it wouldn’t be because he was tired of dealing with his old boyfriend who can’t let go. Why would he not want to deal with that?

He’s not coming back. My best friend told me that over the phone this morning, and it was exactly where my mind was anyway. He sees Chad out (as he works in a gay restaurant and his boyfriend works in a gay bar), and Chad is perfectly happy. He traded me for freedom, for nights of endless beers, parties, friends, no one waiting at home; and he is loving it. I don’t know why I wasn’t more appealing, why the love he had for me wasn’t as strong as that. He doesn’t miss me, he doesn’t think about returning. He feels some sympathy and some guilt about causing me pain. He sees me as puppy he thought he loved for awhile and then returned to the pound, who sits behind his cage whimpering for what was lost, as his human goes and lives in the sunshine.

I am questioning the time we had more all the time, which I hate. Because I KNOW it was real. There is no question. However, in my pointless desire to try to understand, my brain warps what we had and tells me it couldn’t have been real. I know that not to be true, but nonetheless. Thanks to the meds or not, I am not weeping all the time, which is helpful, although makes me stay up a lot later, but in some ways this is just a painful, just different, a different slice from the same blade.

I don’t know how to let go, of course, part of me doesn’t want to (I still feel he deserves me to hang on, to trust in the love we had, even though he doesn’t want me to). I don’t know how to shrug and say, well, that’s over, next. . . I don’t know how to switch my thinking about a man I thought I would marry to see him in some other light. I don’t know how to be the Brandon who could talk about other things, think about other things, who could laugh and smile for real. I am sure I will one day look back and realize I have gotten through it (Chad returning or not—see even now, when I know he’s not returning I can’t stop), but I have no idea when that day will come or how it will come to pass. I’m so tired. Tired of being confused, tried of missing him and being miserable when he is happy and content, tired of hurting, tired of being eaten alive, tired of being tired.