A post in which I return to Spartanburg

Of course, for a different reason than I have been going to Spartanburg lately.

I didn't have a hangover this morning, which is practically a miracle.

Work was work. I had things to do. I did them. It was an odd day. I felt spacey and kind of out of it all day. I wasn't really drunk, but I felt a teeny bit drunk all day. And sleepy.

I did not work out today, although I probably should have. The endorphins might have helped.

Justin and James started texting me today when they found out what happened. They wanted me to come to Spartanburg tonight. I really didn't want to go. What I wanted to do was go home and pull the covers over my head. But I figured I have the rest of my life to do that anyway, right? Initially, I didn't commit, and I frankly figured that James might forget about it, but I underestimated him.

Eventually, I was told that if I did not go to Spartanburg, they would just come down here. Justin threatened to call in a favor I have owed him for a while. In the end, my house is filthy, and it would have been selfish of me to make Justin redeem a favor I owe him to do me another kindness. I gave in and drove up. They wanted to be good to me, and I love them for caring. As I have told my Grandma Shumate many times, sometimes you just have to let people do for you because they love you, and they want to. I also reflected that, although this was not what I thought I needed, I have apparently been a remarkably poor judge of what is good for me of late. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to let someone else decide what I need for a bit.

I resisted the urge to drive by M's house to see if he was at home. I was only going to be one exit away... But I decided that would not be the thing for me to do.

I told them the detailed story of the breakup with M, and the various things he did to try to drive me away before he resorted to actual communication (however thoughtless and inadequate I found said communication). They listened, and both told me they were sorry my feelings were hurt, but that they weren't sorry I was no longer seeing M. They walked the fine line between being derisive of M, while at the same time not denigrating my former object of affection enough to make me feel more stupid than I already do for being interested in him in the first place. Justin walked the line judiciously, and James basically just stomped around it, but both with a touching amount of care. And of course many amusing snarky things were said.

We went out for pizza, and beer was consumed. We stopped for more beer on the way home. It was just as well there was no liquor. I had told Mom I wasn't planning to drink tonight. I really wasn't planning it, but it wasn't a shock to me that it happened. Besides, all she told me was to stay out of the liquor. I have plausable deniability - I did stay out of the liquor. By the time we finished dinner, I felt almost normal for a while. Justin and James basically did a pretty good 'Justin and James Show' and capered for my amusement.

We went back to James' place because we can smoke there, and because he had friends meeting him there to hang out for a while. I met Mandy, a woman that James knows from work and her husband Bobby (aka Stumpy), a veteran of the Iraqi conflict. They were nice. We hung out, shot the shit, drank, and talked.

I have been mentally going through the list of cliche break-up acting out behaviors. I got through most of them in 36 hours. Pretty good.

1 - get very, very drunk - did that last night (and some tonight too)
2 - send drunken text messages and drunk-dial people
3 - have irresponsible sex with a stranger

Well James' lover Jeff came home from work about the time we got to the house. He isn't a stranger, but I hadn't slept with him before. I guess that counts.

I have to get through the Ritual Cleansing of the Bedroom, which is kind of my own personal one, and then of course there is the Purging of His Shit from the house. I'm letting him take the lead on that one. He left a couple of articles of clothing here. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to wash them or not. That was the last thing I did for Michael before he left. I washed all of his clothes. The morning he left, I folded the last of the clean clothes into a large cardboard box, weeping because I would never wash his clothes again. Yeah, I know.

The last stage is the best one. That of Eating Many Things Which Are Really Bad for Me. That one is actually fun. I may buy a pint of ice cream to finish it off.

Part of this I don't even think is about him. It's about how I could think this man was showing me something real. How SURE I was that I was doing just the right thing, going into this the right way. I thought I was just so smart. It shakes my confidence in myself that I could be so wrong about someone. Thinking I had struck gold when it was just iron pyrite. The other part, of course, is that this is the first guy since Michael that I've had any feelings for. I thought this was my second chance, and I was going to put my whole heart in to it. At my age, I just don't know if there's going to be another chance. I'm trying to be OK with that, but I was so happy to think I might get the chance to share my life again with someone wonderful. It's hard to lay that down.

I got home about 3am, and sneaked in past a sleeping Terry. It was way time to get in my empty bed.