Back East

I haven't been able to write. It's the old problem of having so much to say that I can't decide where to begin and even the idea of starting stops me from doing so. But one has to begin somewhere.

I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not sleeping enough, drinking (just a little) too much, and getting too little exercise. I feel like shit.

But that has partly to do with the fact that I just saw my ex-boyfriend, B.A., who very kindly came by to lend my son a bike for the weekend. Decent of him. And yet he didn't fail to take the opportunity to put me down, if ever-so-subtly. Perhaps he's just an insensitive oaf. He saw the Persian rugs I'm airing out on my front porch--the ones that came from my father's house that smell like dog shit and piss and cigarettes and whiskey--and said: "It looks like a bordello out here." And inside, looking at the dining table and chairs, he said "very baroque," which, from him, means, "hideous." "It's the furniture I grew up with," I mumbled.

It would have been nice had he said something positive. I think my house looks a lot better, after all, with real leather and real wood furnishings instead of the odd, dirty pieces I've pulled out of the trash over the years. And then there was the heaviness in his gaze, the accusing look of the wounded, the hurt, that bears down on me. He intends me to feel guilty and I do. But I can't carry this burden. It's not as though I decided not to be madly in love with him. I'm just not.

And then on the front porch, as he was leaving, I asked him about O, his daughter, and he went on and on, as he does, about her camp not being "challenging" enough. Not that she was complaining, or even aware of any problem. She liked it. But he didn't think the counselors were teaching her enough. He's picking up the slack by drilling her in math. "She's only average in math, and that's not good enough. We've come up one level, and if we can come up two more she'll be sufficient for third grade." Sufficient for third grade means, above average. What a remarkably compliant little girl, I thought to myself. In the past, I would have said something like "Boy, you sure put a lot of pressure on her." But this time I concentrated on trying not to betray how this discourse made me feel: not only sorry for her having to live up to his expectations, but also sorry for inadequate self. I never drilled B.N. in math, for example.

Not that he would have gone along with it. There would have been wailing and gnashing of teeth. She's much more obedient and easy-going than my son ever was. Perhaps I have failed him, I thought. As I so often did when talking to B.A.

The problem with B.A. is that he seemed always to leave me feeling rather bad about myself and somewhat overridden, as though he had gone over me with a backhoe and then dug a pit in the earth to show me where I'll end up if I don't improve. Clearly my own insecurities kick in to support these thoughts, but there is also something in him that needs everyone around him to push themselves more than they do. I suspect this drive comes from his parents, who were never satisfied with him, and is now internalized as a stern, dark voice continually finding fault in himself and projecting its perenially unsatisfied gaze onto all around.

Oy. What a relief it was to let him walk away, even though a leaden cloud of guilt and self-doubt lingered over me in his wake. At least I was able to see it and to record my response. At least I was able to understand why I needed to break it off.