Anatomy of a Break-Up (Day Nine)

Sleeping with LaFayette on the couch wasn't so bad.

In fact, I awoke today with a lighthearted and open feeling radiating through me. Most likely due to the new open space concept I had going on in my room and living room from the big move. But I knew when I turned and rolled off the couch and onto the floor and looked at my empty bedframe that today marked the day of some seriously minor, but kinda important, emotional breakthroughs. I also knew I needed a goddamn mattress.

I had a new outlook, so when Assface text me this link: http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/super-page/who-is-the-gayball-paperboy-with-gisele/  and then followed up with: it's the waterslide off-season all over again, I didn't freak out.

Instead, I did just what my shrink said to do. I sat with my shame. Which means I just sat on my couch with this image in my head:

Lo and behold, after about 3 minutes of thinking about that sad, sad day, I stopped thinking about Assface altogether. I remembered what was really important in the world- things like my daughter, taking out Rex Ryan and Manning with a sniper rifle, and the Bruins next playoff game.

Not only was I cured from my constant Assface thoughts, but remembering the day the Pats lost made me a more tolerant person in general. I didn't backhand my niece when she accidentally turned on the Wii while the Bruins were battling the Caps in the third period.

I didn't tackle my sister when she asked who the "really tall guy" on the B's team was. (To be fair, when I glanced at my daughter her little face was contorted with rage and I was pretty sure she was going to take down my sister. She knows the Bruins line-up better than I do and her love for Chara is undying. She talks about him incessantly. I had to look away because the stinkeye she was throwing at her Auntie was messing with my mellow vibe.)

And when the Bruins took it in OT, I honestly believe that was god's way of saying "Good for you, sitting with your shame and all" in his Morgan Freeman voice.

I can't be sure, but if this is what comes of shame sitting, I'm fucking in.

Anatomy of A Break-Up (Day Six)

Today is day six and my sister decided to make the trek to our house. She couldn't understand why I was still bitching about Assface when my normal slogan is "move on and move up". I have a suspicion she didn't believe I was actually crying over him and came to investigate the real reason I sounded all sad and snuffly on the phone.
Turns out she was kinda right...

I woke up with my new-found anger which was nice, but I couldn't inhale without smelling garbage, which was lame. So I went to the doctor and sure enough I had a sinus infection. I was pretty relieved- it proved that my lethargy and general shitty feeling wasn't so much from Assface peacing out as it was from my body mutinying against me. I'll take it.

I heeded the doctors advice and went home to rest the only way a single mama can- by letting my sister do all the work. So I lounged on the couch, watching her chase my 18 month old niece and 8 year old daughter around the living room, trying unsuccessfully to get the Sharpies and dog bones out of their mouths. And as I recounted the events of the past few days in agonizing detail, my sister and I made a startling discovery: now that Assface really is out of the picture, I have to find a job. Or go to school to get another degree to help me find a job. This break-up was getting worse by the day, when it should be the opposite.

Fun Fact: I have a degree in anthropology and a degree in geography- the most unemployable fields ever. Now that Assface and I are over I have to face reality.

I was hoping to leech money from a dude and never work.
Like these hookers, only while being pretty in a way that doesn't involve a scalpel.

There isn't really a part of me that ever felt bad about my work situation. Assface funding most everything when we were together kinda went hand and hand with the fact that he's the "reacher" and I'm the "settler" (a close friend's terms for the one who reaches above his number rating and the one who settles for under her number rating). I'm not naming exact numbers, but there was a solid 3 point differential between us. I was the higher digit.

Actually, the above statement isn't totally true. There was definitely a period of time when I felt bad about the work situation between Assface and I- when we lived in Eastie I had a job for 4 months or so and I hated it.

But the past is the past, and my glory days are over until I find Mr. Boat Shoes. Ergo, I desperately need to find a (temporary) job.

So I began a half-halfhearted search. Which means I looked at all the hilarious jobs on Craigslist. I even applied to 4 of the postings under "gigs"; 3 of which involved musicians in some way and 1 of which involved just an instrument. In between prying her kid off the top of the bannister and telling my kid we already know what B.S. stood for, my sister managed to look over my shoulder and point out all the jobs that she deemed acceptable. I found them all to "worky" and had to veto them. Since I didn't meet the qualifications necessary to land a job on freaking Craigslist, I decided to look at possible graduate programs.

Let me break this down: I need to use my degrees to find a school that will take my degrees and shape them into a single, better degree, so I can get a grown-up job. Lame. All this graduate school crap was getting to me. After all, I never wanted to be a surgeon, I wanted to be with a surgeon.

The following list depicting typical ER doctors illustrates why being with a surgeon is a great idea:

Dr. Jackson Avery sure as hell isn't thinking about being broke. He's weighing the pros and cons of buying property in Monaco. He'll decided to go with the pros.




Dr. Sloan and Dr. Shepherd clearly have that educated-judgmental-making-a-bet-on-hitting-that-later look going for them. No one knows why that's hot, but it is. They're also intimately familiar with the human body and that can only be a good thing.

 Dr. Karev works long hours and he also works out. That type of dedication requires tons of time away from home. As in no listening to a husband yammering away. As in spending his cash in blissful silence.

I want to play doctor with Greg Campbell so badly. So, so badly. I mean I really want to hit that. Otherwise this picture is unrelated.






But no surgeons or trust funds in sight right now, so onward with the grad school idea. I was thinking of a field that would put me a little closer to Mr. Boat Shoes, something like nursing or accounting (so I could be a teller in a Swiss Bank, obviously). But as luck would have it, all the deadlines passed months ago so I'll need to wait until next year to apply to any grad program. And as more of the same luck would have it, next year is right around the time when all my student loans will be in default and I can't even kind of fund grad school.

WAY to many dead ends, and the doctor said I should be resting, so I stopped thinking about everything. I can always come back to the whole job idea later.

Or I could ditch the school and just buy the uniform.
I'm talking to you, Greg Campbell.

I was pumped my sister was staying for a while, but between the sinus infection, knowing how badly my daughter felt about my split with Assface, and the realization that I needed to get a job- ON TOP OF THE BRUINS SUCKING ASS TO THE CAPITALS- my anger was starting to get the best of me. When my niece didn't want to eat the mac and cheese I made her, I told her I was over her attention-sucking ways and held her lovey over her head and out of her reach for a solid minute. I needed to vent. Thank god it was therapy day.

And what a fabulous session it was.

I definitely hadn't been counting on my therapist telling me that my anger and sadness were really covering a sense of shame, yet the second she said those words it all made sense. This truly is an ego issue. I am ashamed that Assface had the strength to pull the plug when I was the one who had wanted to do it for so long. I was ashamed that I had let my daughter down. I was ashamed that I was financially unstable without him. I was ashamed that I became so dependent on him as a friend. I was ashamed I dated someone who wore really short sweatpants, even around the house.

I feel like the next step would have been white Velcro sneakers.

The hard part came after my shrink and I discussed primary versus secondary emotions (which sounds a lot like my anger isn't actually my fault- I shall keep that in my mental vault). She told me that in order to ditch of my shame, I first needed to sit with my shame.

My Thought Sequence:
1- I thought I'd been sitting with my shame my whole life.
2- Clearly I was wrong, so how does one go about sitting with their shame?
3- Is my therapist really giving me a print out of anger pressure points and a couple of guided meditations? Is she honestly telling me that only I can know how to sit with my shame?
4- Awesome time for her to go Kung Fu Panda/every Japanese movie with a wise dude on my ass.

Ultimately, I decided to hang on to my anger for the time being. I still plan on sitting with my shame because that sounds hilarious and who knows (I do)? Maybe it will help (uh-uh). Right now, I hate Assface for hurting my daughter and for injuring my ego and taking the TV. But perchance I don't hate him completely. I certainly don't like the guy right now, and something about the whole break up is really eating at me. Something suspicious is going on and until I know what it is, I'm hoarding all the anger I have inside of me in case I need it. Just like a good Kennedy would.