The Strength in the Straw

It’s been a little over two years since my last post.

In those two years, a lot has changed, Wise Reader. But as I look back on some of my older posts, I realize that other things haven’t changed a bit.

For instance, I’m still with Hubby, but we have been going to counseling. Granted, the only reason he’s there is because I told him that I’m leaving him, but the point is that we’re there together and I truly think things are improving. We’ll never be physically intimate again, but we’re rekindling the friendship we started to lose and that’s more important to me.

And of course there’s the never ending saga of THAT GUY…

Except that it has finally ended.

I faced the reality that it’s been over for a long time. I just looked back at post from 2019 and realized that I’ve been lamenting this relationship for way too long. I’ve been sad and mad and frustrated for way too long and I think it took owning a business for me to realize that I DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS. I am no one’s afterthought. What the fuck have I been doing all these years?? Sheesh!

I’ve walked away from him so many damn times- he must think I’m an idiot. I make some bold statement about how he dun did me wrong, I walk away, I write him a long missive about how I love him but we just don’t belong together, and then I get back together with him month later. The fucker doesn’t even need to do anything- just sit and wait for me to crawl back, bra in hand.

Except this time, I didn’t.

I made my statement- I asked him not to contact me ever again. That I was not his afterthought. It’s been 6 weeks and I haven’t crawled back. I haven’t felt the need to explain my actions to him, or to rationalize or justify my behavior. Truth is, blocking him was a superfluous gesture- he wouldn’t contact me anyway. He wanted OUT. I knew it. He knew it. He was just too much of a coward to say it.

Personally, I think he was already talking to someone else. Thing is, when I think about it I don’t get that knot in the pit of my stomach. I don’t really care. And I feel like I should care. If I loved him, if I trusted him, I would care. It would hurt me to think that he is with someone else. But it doesn’t. And I don’t feel a though he’s cheating on me because ‘I’m not enough for him’. NO ONE will ever be enough for THAT GUY.

See, all of a sudden I grew a pair of balls. I found my self esteem. I realized that I don’t need a man to tell me that I’m beautiful. Lord knows I’ve gone so many years without hearing it that I started to believe that maybe no one is saying it because it’s just not true. Now I realize that it just doesn’t matter. It’s not that I’ve found the beauty inside me or any of that Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey crap, it’s that I don’t need to feel beautiful.

I need to feel STRONG. I need feel CAPABLE. Respected. Worthy. Maybe even ADMIRED.

And I am.

FINALLY.

And it’s because of something I built.

In the 30 months I’ve been open, THAT GUY never visited my shop. He claims it’s because ‘people would realize that there’s something going on between us’.

No, they wouldn’t.

Then he says it’s because ‘it’s such a long drive’.

So what? I’m not asking him to visit my new flower garden. This is something important to me.

But he is King of the Cop Out. The fact is that he didn’t want to make the trip. Period. Just because it was important to me, doesn’t mean it was important to him. And then it struck me: He has never gone out of his way for me.

So all of these blunt realities come raining down on me like so many pieces of straw and the next thing you know, the camel’s back is broken..

And I finally got over the hump.