Moving Day

I finally had a day off from work.  It was to be a beautiful first day of autumn, a sunny pleasant day, my type of weather, a day I should be romping around in the woods filled with happiness and peace.  Instead, it was to be the day he came to remove his personal belongings from my property and leave once and for all.

I was hoping to find some closure from this event.  It was good to see him.  I hadn’t laid eyes on him since I kicked him out on September 4th.  However, he didn’t look like the man I had loved for nine years, instead he looked like some man I used to know, an acquaintance at best.  He came walking up the alley with a two wheeler cart, said he didn’t want to block the alley with the van.  I told him he was being ridiculous, so he retrieved the van.  He jumped out and got right to work, but I told him that first we had some business to attend to.  I handed him a promissory note and informed him that it was about him paying me the money he owed me in back rent.  He looked at the papers, flipping back and forth, back and forth as if I was trying to hide something, but he signed them, handed me the clipboard and got back to work.  If not for me asking where he was staying, he would not have uttered a word to me.  He said he was staying here and there, that was all I got.  Nine years of being great conversationalists and that’s all I got.

After he finished loading the U-Haul van from Loves Park, IL, loading the TVs in boxes that had a statement of “Life’s Good” on them, he made his way to leave without a good bye.  I stopped him and waved him over to me, but in his last chance to control me, he waved me to come by him, so I did.  He stood with his arms propped up between the van and the trash can.  I wanted to touch him one last time, so I put my hands on his arms and asked one more time, “Why?”  He told me that it would take too long to talk about now.  He said to give myself some time and then we would talk.  I told him that I had loved him, he said he loved me too.  I told him that I would have given him everything.  He said that he knew that to be true.  That’s all I can remember.  I don’t remember us saying good bye to each other, I don’t remember seeing any love in his eyes, like I used to.  

I do remember him getting into the van and backing out of the alley.  I didn’t understand why he would do that, unless someone was waiting for him at the entrance.  So I followed him, I wanted to see who it was.  I half thought about making my way around the van to try and beat him to the end of the alley, to catch whoever was there, but I didn’t want to risk him running me down.  When I got there, the only person I saw was my neighbor who lives at the corner.  He turned and drove away, maybe to pick up someone who was waiting for him at another location, but odds are, he was alone and it was just my mind playing tricks on me….again.

I loved him so much, we played so well together, or was it really all just a game to him and I his willing pawn?  I closed my eyes to the obvious warning signs of him never introducing me to anyone in his life, never letting me see where he lived until he moved in with me.  Why do that?  Why move in with me, why build a relationship with me if the entire time he was seeing another woman.  Why lie to me about what he did for a living, except that it was an excellent cover for his absences.  Who does such a thing to another human being?  A monster or someone who is terribly broken.  I must be terribly broken as well to have allowed this to happen to me…again.

What happened to me in my life that I allow myself to look the other way, to ignore my gut feelings, my “Spidey Senses” time and time again.  It never ceases to amaze me the stories I’m willing to believe, the stories I’m willing to tell myself so that everything will feel “Okay”.  Why am I so afraid to face the truth that I claim to embrace?  The truth that I dig for relentlessly, but when I come face to face with it, I turn my head and ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room.  It’s not just me, so many people do it.  We ignore the obvious and choose to accept the stories we are told, the stories we tell ourselves in order to feel “good” about the lives we have created for ourselves.  The stories we gobble up hungrily in order to feel loved or accepted, the stories that allow us to feel like we belong, we are “normal” and share something in common with the human race. When in reality, the only thing we have in common with others is the willingness to lie and be lied to.

I always tell people that I am incapable of lying, but that in itself is a lie.  I lie to myself all the time.  I tell myself that I am doing the best I can, but I know I am capable of more.  I tell myself that he must really love me if he is willing to do X, Y and Z, but he is only doing it to continue the charade.  How many lies do I tell myself daily?  How many people have I embraced that have lied to me?  I know I am capable of great forgiveness, but I try not to forget the harm that was done to me and yet, I do forget and they lie to me more and I forgive and the viscous circle continues and makes the world go round.  How do I make it stop?  Can I make it stop, or is that just how life is?