The first time that Caleb hit me, he pounded my head with his fist.
He yelled, Is this what you wanted? Is this what you wanted? Is this what you wanted?
By then, it was what I wanted.
It was what I wanted because I wanted him to stop berating me, stop scaring me, stop backing me into corners. I thought that, if he hit me, then he would realize he had gone too far because I thought that everyone knew that hitting your wife is wrong.
I can be so fucking smart, but I am also so fucking naive.
Getting what I have wanted has been accompanied by so much loss.
I dreamed about having sex with Caleb the other night. It was the most amazing sex, but even in my dream, I knew that it was wrong.
No one has ever made me feel like he made me feel, and I still miss that.
I have never had better self-esteem than I do right now.
What does that say about how I used to feel about myself?
Because I still feel pretty shitty about myself.
I had a really wonderful evening with a friend tonight. She is so easy to talk to, and I just connect with her. We talked about someone who used to be a really close friend of mine, but is no longer.
My friend asked what I thought had happened to cause this rift, and I responded that my book deal happened.
I got what I wanted–a book deal with a major publishing house.
When the final offer for my book came through, my agent called me on the phone. She was initially in a cab. She then spoke to me from the first floor of a hotel lobby.
She said, “Don’t tell people what you were paid. Writers get jealous, and advances are arbitrary and mean nothing. When people ask you what you got paid, just say ‘Enough to write the book.'”
Writers get jealous.
I got what I wanted, and I lost a friend–or many–in the process.
Just to be clear, I only received enough to write the book. It actually wasn’t even enough to write the book. I’ve recently had to borrow money from my parents.
We all need to talk more honestly about money, okay?
Faculty members keep telling me that they hope I’m “investing” my book advance. I want to say to them, Do you realize my TA salary is $15,700 dollars?
My rent is $16,800 per year.
I love y’all who think I can “invest” this windfall, but I’m still barely keeping my kid off of free lunch.
I have moved into the elite school district. Reed and I went to the open house, and the “feminist” moms from my English department who supported the sexual predator all snubbed me.
My heart was broken because I feared that my outspokenness would harm Reed, but he is doing fine. He has already made friends and fit into his new school. He is so resilient.
No one matters more to me than Reed.
I saved myself from dying for that kid.
Maybe I should rephrase that.
That kid saved me from dying.
I am very good at getting things that I want, but they do not usually turn out the way that I wanted.
I wanted River Guide.
I still remember the first time I talked to him on the boat ramp at Corn Creek. He made prolonged eye contact, and my coworker laughed and took a swig of his beer because he saw what was going on.
For the rest of the summer, I exerted my energy on River Guide. I am not a good flirt and not very forward, so instead, I was just nice. I would make him coffee in the morning and take it to his boat, then he would make coffee and bring it to my A-frame.
I finally ran into him in town and invited him to go to the Blues, Brews, and BBQ festival with me. My hand shook as I entered his number into my phone.
We were there for hours. He does not drink, so neither of us had liquid courage, but we ended up going back to my parents’ house (they were conveniently camping). He said that he wanted to watch the dry lightning storm play out.
We lay in the grass and watched the dry lightning storm until we were no longer watching the lights above us.
I got what I wanted with River Guide.
It went on for two years.
He broke my heart, but a heart that has already been firmly broken is less easy to damage.
There is so much I have wanted.
I want you to love me.
You, random stranger, I want you to love me.
When will I love myself?
I have been pursuing a particular man for a long time. It has been a joke with my friends. Finally, he said, “I really like talking to you. We should get a drink sometime.”
It’s a very long story, but we got a drink. We got more drinks.
Things ended badly.
He said, “I don’t want to cause you pain.”
I said, “You don’t have the power to cause me pain.” (I wasn’t trying to be a dick. I was trying to reassure him because I had taken his words at face value.)
He said, “OH, I GET IT.”
And I said, “Well, I like you, but I don’t care about you to the point where you could cause me pain.”
And he said, “OH, I CAN’T CAUSE YOU PAIN. POINT TAKEN.”
So I guess that he really wanted to cause me pain?
There were other things that I don’t want to discuss here for fear of violating his privacy.
I had thought that I had a good read on him, that he was “a mess” but basically harmless.
He is not harmless.
I got what I wanted with him though, didn’t I?
What do I do if my wants are not congruent with my needs?
Caleb, too, was what I wanted.
I pursued him. I made him mine.
And then he destroyed me.
His fist connected with my scalp. Is this what you want? Is this what you want?
It was what I wanted.
And now?
I honestly don’t know what I want.
I just want my heart to be whole.