Tuesday
Oct112005
But Why?
"But why?" I ask, unshed tears already prickling my eyes. He looks down at the porch on which we're sitting. I can feel the cold leaking through my thin, cotton, workout pants. Yellow-white sunlight filters weakly through a neighbor's tree and dapples the side of his face with patches of light and dark.
"It doesn't matter. It's just... it's me." He casts his eyes askance, acknowledging the cop out of this sentence.
"Just tell me." I try to maintain control, keep my voice low, but a small tremor on the word 'me' gives me away.
I hadn't seen this coming. Yeah, we'd been fighting lately. A lot. Wasn't that par for the relationship course? Nobody hits holes-in-one all the time. Do they? I'd chosen to be myself, or what I thought was myself, in this relationship. Venting every little frustration under the guise of being real.
"I hate my job."
"I'm so fat."
"The stylist completely fucked up my hair, I am NOT going ANYWHERE looking like this!"
Isn't this what REAL relationships are made of? Full disclosure? Total honesty? Revealing the real me. No fake-fronting. Love me or leave me. This is girl power! Isn't it? And then. The sentence.
"You just aren't the girl for me." He says this while looking off into the distance. Away from me. From us. I try to power through the overwhelming urge to burst into girly tears. But you know how it is. The more you try, the more you cry.
I turn inward. Heeding Ani DiFranco's advice, I dilate. Fuck you and your untouchable face, I think. I grab this tough-girl thread in hopes it will lead me to my familiar tough-self. The self born of being a child of divorce, battling three brothers, growing up on food stamps, getting a job at fourteen, moving out at sixteen, pregnant at seventeen, abortion. The self that sharpened her edges by living alone and trusting no one for nearly ten years. But she is no match, because she is just 'not the girl'. He has confirmed what she always feared. Back when parents of friends wouldn't allow their daughters to play with her because she was part of 'That bad Butler family'.
Something breaks inside my chest and fat tears spill onto my cheeks. I actually see one plop onto the porch like a raindrop. He shifts uncomfortably. Not because he wants to wash his hands of the girl crying on his porch, but because he's made me cry. See? He's a good guy like that.
I thought I was living authentically. I thought he 'got me'.. And so I let my shadowy shallow self into the light, mistakenly assuming that was 'being real'. But being 'real' turned me into a whining, complaining weakling. I thought he'd see beyond the bad behavior to the real me. But the bad behavior was the real me. He realized that before I did. Then I made one of the biggest realizations of my life. I discovered my pattern with men. In my relationships, I'd let it all hang out. All of it. I'd spew everything that's ever happened to me. Some good, but mostly the bad and the ugly. Then I'd stand defiantly, arms crossed, waiting to see what each boyfriend would do. Could they handle me? Will they see through my bullshit to the real me? Never realizing that the bullshit was the real me.
I was shattered for two years after this conversation. Mangled self-esteem, slowly gluing the pieces back together. But I limped from that wreckage with an important lesson that I use every single second of my married life. Just because I am loved, just because I am understood, I do not have a hall pass to do and act as I please. Because I am loved, because I am understood, I must try harder to filter out as much of the bad behavior as I can.. Not wave it like a flag, daring someone to love me anyway, under the mistaken notion that if they put up with my shit, it's true love. Now, it's more important than ever that I put my best put forward, for my husband. That's true love.
"It doesn't matter. It's just... it's me." He casts his eyes askance, acknowledging the cop out of this sentence.
"Just tell me." I try to maintain control, keep my voice low, but a small tremor on the word 'me' gives me away.
I hadn't seen this coming. Yeah, we'd been fighting lately. A lot. Wasn't that par for the relationship course? Nobody hits holes-in-one all the time. Do they? I'd chosen to be myself, or what I thought was myself, in this relationship. Venting every little frustration under the guise of being real.
"I hate my job."
"I'm so fat."
"The stylist completely fucked up my hair, I am NOT going ANYWHERE looking like this!"
Isn't this what REAL relationships are made of? Full disclosure? Total honesty? Revealing the real me. No fake-fronting. Love me or leave me. This is girl power! Isn't it? And then. The sentence.
"You just aren't the girl for me." He says this while looking off into the distance. Away from me. From us. I try to power through the overwhelming urge to burst into girly tears. But you know how it is. The more you try, the more you cry.
I turn inward. Heeding Ani DiFranco's advice, I dilate. Fuck you and your untouchable face, I think. I grab this tough-girl thread in hopes it will lead me to my familiar tough-self. The self born of being a child of divorce, battling three brothers, growing up on food stamps, getting a job at fourteen, moving out at sixteen, pregnant at seventeen, abortion. The self that sharpened her edges by living alone and trusting no one for nearly ten years. But she is no match, because she is just 'not the girl'. He has confirmed what she always feared. Back when parents of friends wouldn't allow their daughters to play with her because she was part of 'That bad Butler family'.
Something breaks inside my chest and fat tears spill onto my cheeks. I actually see one plop onto the porch like a raindrop. He shifts uncomfortably. Not because he wants to wash his hands of the girl crying on his porch, but because he's made me cry. See? He's a good guy like that.
I thought I was living authentically. I thought he 'got me'.. And so I let my shadowy shallow self into the light, mistakenly assuming that was 'being real'. But being 'real' turned me into a whining, complaining weakling. I thought he'd see beyond the bad behavior to the real me. But the bad behavior was the real me. He realized that before I did. Then I made one of the biggest realizations of my life. I discovered my pattern with men. In my relationships, I'd let it all hang out. All of it. I'd spew everything that's ever happened to me. Some good, but mostly the bad and the ugly. Then I'd stand defiantly, arms crossed, waiting to see what each boyfriend would do. Could they handle me? Will they see through my bullshit to the real me? Never realizing that the bullshit was the real me.
I was shattered for two years after this conversation. Mangled self-esteem, slowly gluing the pieces back together. But I limped from that wreckage with an important lesson that I use every single second of my married life. Just because I am loved, just because I am understood, I do not have a hall pass to do and act as I please. Because I am loved, because I am understood, I must try harder to filter out as much of the bad behavior as I can.. Not wave it like a flag, daring someone to love me anyway, under the mistaken notion that if they put up with my shit, it's true love. Now, it's more important than ever that I put my best put forward, for my husband. That's true love.
Oct 11, 2005 | 24 Comments
Reader Comments (24)
(By the way, I haven't read any of NH's books, but I think I'm going to start, but everytime I watched About a Boy this weekend I thought of you)
I know that girl on the porch, I think a lot of us do.
Once again you've used your supurb writing skills to let us into your heart and teach us about ourselves! Thanks for keepin' it real! :)
I love your writing. You are so real and so honest. Great stuff.
Glad you made a recovery, as many people never do.
I've been sort of dancing around the edges of this idea too, and it is really comforting to see what you wrote because it makes me feel like I'm on the right track.
Thanks for sharing this, Monica, even though I found this a year after you posted it.
Wow. Thank you so much, Monica. Your honesty and insight is astounding. The truth of your writing is so apparent and vivid that it shakes me right up. I am the girl on the porch, too. And I'm learning, from reading this site, that I'm not alone! Thanks for being so amazing.
This made me smile.
Who,
I will write this down and send it to the Chicago Asshole..who truly is my better half, just needs a little more polishing after 7 years...I need to take this into consideration...I need to mail this to myself..Amazing Who! At 38 I get it!
I am new to your posts and liked your new ones so much I decided to go back and read from the beginning I just got to this one 6 years after it was written. I am 25. I have no children and I am not married. I have been with the same man (the love of my life) for 7yrs and this post made so much sense to me I wanted to know if you still felt the same way...6 years and 2 babies later?