Pirate's Booty

I’m sitting on my kitchen floor, literally surrounded by snacks. I’ve got all my favorites here, Pirate’s Booty, Haribo Gummy Bears, Stacy’s Simply Cinnamon and Sugar pita chips…and a root beer. I’m watching my guinea pig, Bono, eat a carrot. I should be eating a carrot **stuffs handful of Pirate’s Booty into mouth**, but to be fair, carrots to Bono are like candy bars to me. So I guess I’ll call it even for now.

I wouldn’t say that I “normally” spend my Sunday nights sitting on my kitchen floor eating bad food and watching my guinea pig, but I’m on day 17 of a sad breakup. Wow, 17 days already. Seventeen days and it feels like two. This isn’t my first breakup, and lord knows it probably won’t be my last, but man does this one suck. In terms of dating, we hadn’t been together for too long, 6 months. But when you see a person and talk to them almost every day for 6 months, there is a significant loss when it ends. And I’m not going to lie, I’m normally the girl that will text message or call or email something a few days after the break up and then some weird post-breakup ritual starts until I feel like the ex has bruised my heart just enough or he starts fucking another girl, then I can usually move on. But this time, I decided to try to be an adult. I did just turn 30 after all, so I decided no angsty texts or emails. No super sappy facebook posts. I almost adhered to my rule. I didn’t call or email, I did send one text. It was an “I miss you” text midday about 5 days in. I didn’t hear back. You’d think that would have been a clear enough sign to chill out, but my heart still wishes he’d respond.

I often wonder if our society sets us up to fail in relationships. No one ever writes stories about how “they” lived happily ever after. Because that’s not dramatic, people want drama, they want fights. They don’t want to see a couple sitting on the couch watching Dexter on Sunday nights. People also do not want to see someone sitting on the kitchen floor eating popcorn and looking at happy-together picture of their ex, unless this is just part of the “grand scheme” . Perhaps it will don on me that sitting on the floor eating popcorn is not doing me any good. In the movie version of this, some sort of dramatic/inspiring music will start and I will close my bag of popcorn, take a shower, put on some jeans and start making things happen (cut to montage of me doing yoga/running with my dog/laughing while talking on the phone to an unknown caller) Too bad that’s not my real life. In reality, I’m going to finish this  paragraph, put my fat guinea pig back in his cage, take my popcorn to the couch and turn on something that will let me temporarily forget how much my heart hurts right now.

When I’m done with that, I’ll take a higher than recommended dose of melatonin and try to sleep. Sleep is the worst. You can’t control what you dream of, and so it’s then that I unwillingly let myself imagine that he’s sleeping right next to me. I’ll eventually wake up in the middle of the night, and all too quickly realize it was just a dream. I’ll look at his side, wish that I hadn’t given him all his stuff back. A tee shirt of his would be nice to smell right now. I’ll lay awake for a long time, wondering if he’s lying awake thinking of me.  I’ll check my phone for the millionth time, just in case I missed the text message response I’ve been holding my breath for. It of course won’t be there. I’ll turn back over and close my eyes. Tomorrow – day 18.