Undies in a Bunch

The Last Day of September

Long gone was that feeling of euphoria. Day after day for the past two months I carried a ton of bricks in my gut. My gut knew it was wrong to be with him but I shook off my good sense. I tried to ignore the warning signs, but day after day they chased me. I no longer had a red flag alerting me of the danger ahead. A huge, red blanket was now coating my brain.
I sit on the 6 train, close to midnight on the last day of September and I can’t stop thinking. Although I try to make sense of last night, his lies just don’t add up. I try to convince myself that he is telling the truth, but I know better. The evidence is just too overwhelming.
For this story to make sense I have to go back in time.
Last weekend I wanted to spend time with him, but no matter what I said or offered he wouldn’t agree to spend time with me.
He was going to Washington, DC to see about yet another deejaying possibility.
The beginning of the end was when one thing after another began to take my place. First it was the friends. Next was the endless amount of dead end money making possibilities. Call them hobbies if you will. Things just continued to become more and more important to him until I was no longer a priority. He would never say it, but I had lost my value. To him, I was dispensable.
Part of it was my fault. I had become a joke to him. I was too convenient, too available. He got rewarded when he was not deserving. I made him feel too comfortable. He knew he had me. He had no reason to try to keep me because he knew I would be there.
The deejaying / party promoting jobs were the replacements that knocked me off the map. Louise who? I have a Par-tay to promote. There went my quality time.
I really tried to be supportive because I wanted him to be happy. My biggest mistake was caring about his happiness before taking care of my own. Who was supporting me?
Financially these party promoting gigs were not helping us. I was busy saving for myself because in an emergency I had no one to fall back on. I should have been able to rest assure that my man would pick up the slack if I ever needed him because we were a team, right? But he couldn’t even scrape together the chump changed I requested for the bills. It was always like pulling teeth, always causing a heated argument. That was one of my ‘Red Blanket’ moments. When his paycheck arrived the first thing he thought was, ‘Let me put this amount towards flyers, this amount toward records, this amount towards speakers...’
I swear, if I saw another fucking deejay flyer, if I heard about another party that was taking time away from my relationship…Ugh! How could these pieces of paper outweigh my worth? It all made me so sick. I’d spot the box full of flyers sitting there just asking me to please toss them into the garbage...Flyers? What flyers?
He hardly ever made a profit but he didn’t care because he was out with his loser buddies, checking out hoes, living it up.
He wasn’t a very good businessman so at times he would end up deejaying for free. He’d even risk his steady job for this...hobby. ‘Red Blanket’
He couldn’t differentiate between a hobby and the necessary responsibility that we call a job. He had no sense of what it was to be a real adult. Why would he? He had a reliable woman to pick up the pieces and his mom to fall back on.
So, it’s September 24th. Last night was a bad night between us. We have disconnected and I’m left feeling empty. I need him to reconnect with me, but I am not a concern of his today. We did laundry together. I asked him repeatedly not to go to DC if he didn’t have to. Please go another weekend. Please just stay with me today. He said no nicely and continued getting dressed. No worries, he’ll be back tomorrow, Sunday around noon.
It’s Sunday, noon came and went but there is no sign of him. Why is my stomach in knots? Why am I so anxious? Why do I keep calling? There is no answer...no answer...no answer. Why do I keep looking at my phone? This is not the first time he has been a ‘no call, no show’. Why am I surprised?
It is bedtime. I cannot sleep. I watch the hours tick away. 1am, 2am, 3am...Shit, I have to work tomorrow. I am worried now. What if there was an accident. I start to think the worst. He has played this game before so I am not sure if I should be worried or angry. 4am...I am like a dog. My ears are keen to every sound. A car door slams, the elevator moves. Is it him? I run to the elevator and watch the numbers change never making it to 7.
5am...there it is. The sound of the key in the lock. There are excuses, he is sorry. Sorry means nothing to me anymore. He got back from DC and met up with some friends...and he didn’t think to call me!? I am no longer of any value. I am dispensable.
Loving someone and not having your love returned can do a number on your self esteem. I knew that I deserved much better than this, but physically, emotionally I couldn’t bring myself to do what I needed to do. I couldn’t understand why my love was not good enough. Why doesn’t common sense work here? If I were him, I would do everything in my power to make sure this woman never left me. I would never take her for granted and I would make sure she knew how much she was worth to me. He had everything and still it wasn’t good enough. Why doesn’t common sense work here? Why aren’t my good deeds appreciated? Why isn’t my sadness understood? Why don’t my words find common ground in his brain?