The San Francisco experiment failed, and I’m bloody relieved to be home.  Three months ago, I had a boyfriend, a perfectly tolerable job, a car, and a home with people who love me.  I moved away from the job and the home, the boyfriend broke up with me (because he’s a douchenozzle) and my car got hit by a truck, which meant that I got to be rushed to the hospital on a backboard!  I can check that one off the bucket list now!  Also, in the fight between big goddamned truck and tiny car made of plastic, the truck was the victor.

No job, no car, no boyfriend, and a roommate who seemed to hate me more and more as time went on, but refused to tell me why.  Until yesterday when she said “You’re really messy.”  Which, actually, wait a minute, isn’t fucking true.  And the other two roommates confirmed this: I made fewer messes than anyone else in the house, and I did most of the cleaning.  OOPS.  Maybe if she’d talked to me about it, we could have resolved that without two months of her trying to drive me insane.  Anyhow, the damage was done.  Now she can be the one to clean up everyone’s messes!

As soon as I decided to leave, I felt much less stressed-out.  And now that I’m home I feel happy, actually happy, for the first time since the douchenozzle broke my heart!

I’m back home, bitches!

On October 2nd, I gave Emery a ride back to his truck from a bar where we’d met for drinks.  And in the 15 minutes it took to drive from point A to point B, we kept the conversation light and cheerful.  I had decided a couple of days before that I was going to move to San Francisco, a move Emery had been pushing me to make almost as long as we’d been together, which was over a year at that point.

I pulled up to the curb behind his truck, and idled.  He suggested I find a place to park, so I did.

And he told me that he was feeling “itchy.”  When I asked him what that meant, he said he didn’t know.  But he wasn’t sure whether this, us, was what he wanted.  He thought we were as close as we were ever going to get and would never get this close again.  He wanted to pull back a bit.  He wasn’t sure what he wanted.  Honestly, he didn’t say an awful lot.  He was vague.  I had to dig and dig to get as much out of him as I did.  When I suggested that we take some time off, he agreed.  When I asked if he wanted to break up, he cried unabashedly.  So I said, okay, why don’t we take a few steps back.  I’ll move to the city as planned, and we’ll take it easy and see where it goes.  He calmed down a bit.  He asked how I managed to stay so calm.  We kissed and held each other and he got out of my car and into his truck and drove away, and I sat there in that parking lot, chain smoking and repeating the word “awful.”  This is awful.  I feel awful.  This feels awful.  Awful.

A week later, I moved to San Francisco as planned.  And eleven days after that, Emery broke up with me.

He still couldn’t really say why.  We didn’t do a whole lot of talking about it, to be honest.  I mean, I talked.  I begged.  I asked questions.  I cried, I yelled, I got drunk and hysterical and catatonic and hysterical again.  But, honestly, for the most part, I remained calm.  And he couldn’t explain, or wouldn’t.  It was just over.  There was nothing I could say or do.  He offered me no hope, no grievances that I could try to amend. After a year of telling me that I should give in and trust, of assuring me that my doubts were silly and unfounded, he did exactly the thing he’d promised he wouldn’t.  He left me, suddenly and without explanation.  The thing I’d most feared.

And it was, and it is, awful.

People have tried to console me, telling me that it probably just wasn’t meant to be.  Well, obviously.  It’s over.  That means it’s meant to be over.  I’m pragmatic, tautological in my reasoning.  It’s over because it’s over because it’s over.  And if it wasn’t meant to be over, it wouldn’t be, but it is.

Others have said that I’m too good for him.  And I normally poo-poo this sort of mindless platitude, but in this case, yes.  It’s true.  I am too good for him.  And I’ll tell you why.

I have the capacity for great love, great passion, heartbreaking sadness and ecstatic joy.  I am intelligent, funny, generous and warm.  I am brave and daring and strong and I deserve someone who appreciates those things, who understands those things, who also has the capacity for great depth and intensity.

So fuck you and your ambivalence.  Fuck you and your numb indifference.  Fuck you and your “I hate having to do this to people.  I hate breaking hearts.  I hate breakups.”  I am not some interchangable girlfriend-figure.  I am not someone that you are doing this to.  I am the girl who loved you fiercely and wholly, even when I was scared, even when I had doubts, because you told me it was safe.

And you lied.

People have the right to break off relationships at any time and for any reason.  And the end of this one is not the end of my world.  Emery has the right to do whatever the hell he wants.  It’s fine.

But the manner in which he did it, and after all the promises that he wouldn’t leave me without a damned good reason, this callow indifference to the suffering of someone he claimed to love– it shakes me to my core.  Because I believed that I could trust him.  I believed that I was right to trust him.  And if I can’t believe in my own intuition about these things, that means that I can’t trust myself.

Which I already suspected.  And that’s so much worse than not being able to trust some boy.

So, yes.  I am angry.  And oh, I feel awful.  I have dreams about him leaving me, sometimes more than one in a night.  It’s not a replay of what actually happened, but a different setup each time.  In one, he loves someone else.  In another, he simply doesn’t love me anymore.  And I think that, in a way, it’s my mind trying to come up with an explanation, since he never really gave one.  There has to be some reason.  All this pain can’t be for no reason.  Right?

It’ll be two months tomorrow since he left me.  I don’t know why he did.  I suspect I’m better off.  I know that I deserve more than what he could give me.  I believe it’s for the best.  But that doesn’t cut down the rage I feel.  It doesn’t make my heart whole again.  I think it might be a long time before I trust anyone again, and I suspect that that, too, is for the best.  In the meantime, I am sitting in my bedroom in San Francisco, trying to wring what wisdom I can out of this whole mess.  And I am nursing a despair and a bitterness that colors everything I see, do, touch, taste, feel, imagine or dream.

It’ll pass.  I’ll be better off.  In time.

It wasn’t violent, in that there wasn’t a knife to my throat or anything.  But he did have knives, birthday gifts he’d received the week before and had brought along to show me.  And I wasn’t injured, unless you count my innocence.  That it ended quickly, before I was even sure I could call it rape, that he didn’t ejaculate, did nothing to comfort me.  It clouded things. I wasn’t sure whether I was still a virgin or not.  For fifteen years, I doubted my own version of the story.

The same summer I was raped, I was dating someone four years my senior.  And after what happened, I wanted to settle the lingering question of my virginity by having sex.  But my boyfriend wouldn’t do it.  I was only 15, and we weren’t in love.  He didn’t think it would be right.

I have always been grateful to him for that.  I decided I still was a virgin, because what happened hardly counted and I hadn’t wanted it anyway.  I did my best to minimize the experience in my own mind.  I was reluctant to tell people about it.  My parents, when I told them, said things that were less than ideal.  They didn’t know how torn-up I was about what had happened.  I didn’t let on.

*****

A few years ago, I went looking for information about the boyfriend I’d had the summer I was 15, the one who wouldn’t sleep with me because I was so young and we weren’t in love.  I found out that he was convicted of rape in 2008, for forcing himself on a 13-year-old and plying some 14-and-15-year-olds into sex with alcohol at parties that he and his roommate held.  He was 30 or 31 when he was sent to prison, and isn’t eligible for release until 2026.

I have no doubt that he is guilty. He was always a troubled person, the sort of guy you’d have no problem believing could do something criminal.  I’d hoped he’d done something better with his life, and in fact had heard from his brother that he was doing well.  So I was saddened to read about what he’d done, because he’d been decent to me.

I wrote him a letter in prison.  This is what it said:

It’s been years since we saw one another—ten years, maybe?  I was still in high school, and you were working at the candy store.  I wrote to your brother some time ago to find out how you were doing, and he said that you were doing well.  It saddens me greatly to hear what a downturn your life has taken.

If it were someone I didn’t know who committed the crimes you’re in prison for, I’d say hang him by the balls and leave him to die.  But ever since I heard about the charges against you, I’ve wished I knew of some way to reach out.  I wrote about you on my blog, and that’s how I found out that you’d been sentenced.  There are people in the world who want to defend you, and plenty of people who feel, as I do, that what you’ve done is reprehensible.  Still, I knew you once.  I can’t shake that thought.

What I remember about the time we were going out is how very respectful you were of my youth and virginity.  You had an odd habit that endeared you to me; you wouldn’t touch any part of my body that was covered by clothing, and you never removed any of my clothing yourself.  I don’t know what changed in you.  Your girlfriends didn’t get any older, that’s for sure.

I found out about your crimes by doing a Google search for your name sometime last year.  I was shocked, and wrote about you on my blog.  One of the posts has become sort of a mini discussion group for people who knew you.  Someone, who I assume is your former roommate, wrote to say that you’d been sentenced.  So I went on [a crime website], paid ten dollars, and found out where you are.  This morning I called the [State] Department of Corrections to find out how long your sentence is (Oh My God) and how to reach you.

So that’s how I know where you are.  I don’t know why I felt the need to get in touch with you, but I did, and so here I am.  You can write back if you want to; in fact, I’d like it if you did.

I hope that, even in prison, you can manage to make a decent life for yourself.  You are in my thoughts.  Let me know if there’s anything I can do, within reason, to help out.

He wrote back seven hand-written pages, and it was creepy as hell. He denied what he’d done, and I never wrote him another letter.

*****

On Tuesday night, I did a Google search for the name of my rapist.  I don’t know what I was expecting to find.  I was curious.  What I found was his name on a sex offender registry.  He was convicted of rape in military court in 2007.  It seems that he served two years in prison, something I deduced by the fact that he didn’t register as a sex offender until 2009.  And like the other instance, I don’t doubt that he’s guilty.  Perhaps of a lot more than he was convicted of.

The day after I found out that I was not his only victim, I walked around in a daze.  I didn’t know what to think or how to feel.  I wasn’t sad or distressed, exactly, just very full of thoughts.  Troubled.  Confused.  And I was baffled by this feeling I didn’t know how to process: relief.

I didn’t make it up.  I am not wrong to say that I was raped.  I’m not a bad person for maligning the reputation of someone who maybe just made an honest mistake.  He’s not a good person.  He’s a bad person.  I am so, so sorry for whomever else he’s hurt.  I am lucky to have gotten away so easily from him, even though the memory of that day still makes me sick to my stomach.  Apparently someone else wasn’t so lucky—he’s classified as a violent offender.  And I hear it’s hard to get rape prosecuted in the military, so I don’t think it’s an incredible stretch to say that what he did must have been pretty bad.

I have felt guilty and ashamed about being raped for half of my life.  As twisted as it is, I feel better knowing that he is the bad one, and that it wasn’t my fault.  I’m sorry he raped someone else. I hope he never hurts anyone ever again.  But there’s a sick solace in knowing I’m not the only one, it wasn’t my imagination, I’m not overreacting, he is a rapist, and it wasn’t and isn’t my fault.

*****

How did my life intertwine with that of two rapists in that summer?  How did I meet two such damaged, damaging people?  I was a fairly sheltered teenager, I grew up in a small, safe town, I didn’t get into much trouble, do drugs, hang out with the wrong crowd.  I am incredibly lucky am I that things didn’t end up so much worse for me, and I am incredibly sorry for the later victims of those two terrible men.  My mind reels.  My heart sinks.  There is absolutely nothing I can do except try to purge all these feelings, and try to find some peace.

I said I was growing it out, didn't I?

And it only took eight months…

this is what it looked like on august 1st 2010

Cold turkey it is.

We had some great times, some crazy times, and I think you’re a good person. And yeah, I focus on the good memories. Life’s better that way, I think. Those people that always say they have no regrets, bunch of people that lie to themselves, but damn they’re probably the happiest too.

I found this chat log yesterday, and it made me really happy.  So I thought I’d share.

But it’s been a couple hours now, and I’m feeling mostly better.  I’ve found it’s helpful to ask myself “What am I afraid of?” and go from there.  Because it’s never really as bad as I think it is.  I get so caught up in feeling awful that I fail to see the trees for the forest, if I can twist a metaphor.  I’m so busy freaking out over everything that I don’t see that every component of my anxiety is something I can do something about.

So I think I’m going in to work early today so that I can finish early, and then I’ll come home and try to sort out my life. I’m tired of keeping my fears and anxieties at bay.  I need to face them head-on, and that’s a lot easier in daylight than it is at 4am.

I don’t think most people know that about me, even people who know me well.  I’m just starting to figure it out about myself.

Strange to think about.

But we couldn’t find the leash.  It’s one of those nice, retractable ones, and it’s hot pink, so it should have been easy to spot.  But it just wasn’t there.  Mom went digging through a cabinet and found something that would do: Sam’s old leash.

Sam was the first dog I ever had, the only other dog I’ve had.  We got her when I was eight, when my family was living on a ranch in Hollister.  I think I must have named her, because “Samantha” seems like the kind of thing an eight-year-old girl would name a puppy.  She was a mutt, apparently part Husky and mostly Question-Mark, and she had the coloring of a German Shepherd, but the coarse hair of a Lab.  She weighd about 50 pounds and was good at responding to verbal commands.  You could walk her without a leash.  She had the softest ears I’d ever felt.  I called them “velvet ears.”  She got stinky when she didn’t have a bath for awhile.  Sometimes we’d let her wander the neighborhood, and I had a special way of calling her, almost a song.  “Sa-MAAAAAAAAN-thaaaa.  C’mere, c’mere puppy!  Saaaaaa-mmmmy!”  And she’d always come, and you could hear the fast beat of her paws seconds before you’d see her.

She was a damned good dog, was Sam.

She got old and she died.  She was a shell of herself by the time she finally went.  I was maybe 23 when I got a call saying that Sam had died.  By that point, she wasn’t fun anymore.  I hadn’t really cared about her in years, if we’re being honest.  She was more a stinky, incontinent burden than anything else.  And she just made me so sad, seeing her so old and feeble when she’d been the best dog a kid could hope for.  It was a relief when she finally died.

I hadn’t really thought about Sam for a long time until my mom pulled that leash out of the cabinet tonight.  And I attached it to the collar of my spunky little Lily-Pie, my sweet puppy who doesn’t always come when called, who you can’t even think of walking without a leash, and I thought about my first dog,  my Sammy.  And I remembered what a good dog she was, what a sweet dog, and how much I loved her.

And now I’m crying harder than I’ve cried in months.

Damned dog.

This is notable in that I haven’t really felt that way for a couple of months.

I think it’s just a blip, but it’s odd to think that I used to wake up feeling like that pretty much every damned day.  I don’t anymore.  How about that?