This story won’t make an ounce of sense without reading these first.
She cheated on me.
She told me one evening while we were at her aunts house (where she lived). I can’t remember the exact words she spoke. But she told me what she did and with whom. I had an out of body. I was angry and pissed but still in love. I had seen my fair share of Ricki Lake and Jenny Jones shows. I just knew that if someone had cheated on me, there was no amount of love in the world that could forgive that, I would instantly cut them off and be done with them forever. Something strange happened that day though, that surprised me. I was angry, yes. But I didn’t hate her, I still loved her. I didn’t want to throw our relationship away, I thought that we could work through this and be stronger because of it.
She broke up with me.
Was I dreaming? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was it all over? Gwen Stephani’s song Don’t Speak captured how this moment felt to me extremely well. I remember climbing into her lap and crying and saying no it didn’t have to be the end. But she was done with me and done with us. There is a song that says “i never knew love like this before” well, I never knew pain like this before…it cut like a knife.
She dumped me sometime in Jan. I remember because I worked a gig at 800 flowers for the Valentines Day season. I remember hurting through that time since I was taking orders for people sending flowers to the ones they love. Every order I took dug the knife deeper and deeper in my heart. I just knew she dumped me to be with that hoe she cheated on me with. I knew that she didn’t give a damn about me or my feelings. I remember that my school did this Valentine thing where you could send someone a Valentine and they put the Valentine up on this big board…she had the nerve to send me one, I wanted to slap her (but with a balled up fist).
The 5 Stages of Grief
I didn’t know about the 5 stages of grief until I actually went through it for the first time in my life. To this day it is still a haze. After our breakup, she walked me to the bus stop and I was searching for some affection, something that would indicate that she didn’t want it to be over. I asked for a kiss, I got a peck on my cheek. I tuned my walkman to the radio and playing was “You Will Always Be My Baby” by Mariah Carey. I felt like it was going to be OK, that feeling lasted for maybe a few hours…in hindsight, I believe I feel into a deep short-term depression.
Denial
This will pass, she will come to her senses and come back any day know. Well days turned into weeks and then to months. But when she didn’t meet me at the bus stop or in the morning to get breakfast, when she didn’t call me after practice…I knew it was real. The pain I felt was unbearable. Like someone reached into my chest, ripped my heart out and stabbed it every second of everyday.
Anger
I wanted to kill somebody. I think I almost did if wasn’t for my good friends J and E who kept me from going to jail. I couldn’t believe she did this to me. I was convinced that she never loved me and that she was a lying, cheating whore who was never worthy of me in the first place. I hated her…and hate is an understatement. I was so uncontrollably angry and sad. I thought that when I thought we were making love, it was just sex to her. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was or how I believed she even loved me at all. You don’t love someone, cheat on them and then kick them to the curb. Where were the warning signs? I mean everything was going fine (so I thought) and bam, this…
The only way I can rationalize someone ripping someone who was such a critical part of their life out of their life was if that person really never mattered at all.
Bargaining
I don’t think I spent much time in this stage. I went directly from anger to depression…
Depression
Some days I felt like I couldn’t get out of bed. I actually had to goto the Spark program at school to talk to one of the teachers about what I was going through. I mean I even went to the Hetrick Martin institute in Manhattan. I was depressed and uncertain of my sexuality. My friend J gave me the nickname Sparky because I was so volataile just like a Spark Plug. But looking back, I am so grateful to the teacher who helped me during this period and thankful to J and E for giving me their ear. J even went with me to my appointments. I found out that the folks that matter are there when you need them. I learned how strong I really was and how good it is to have friends who love and care about you. They even hooked me up with one of my friends boyfriends friends…who was a lesbian. LOL. We were totally not a match, but hey I guess they said Tami’s a lesbian and C is a lesbian…so let’s hook them up! LOL. Bless their crazy hearts!
Acceptance
It probably took me a full year to get to this stage as I only really begin to move on around my second semester in college. Deep wounds take a long time to heal, I learned this the hard way. I spent a lot of time being angry and depressed. But over time, I begin to realize that I can’t make someone love me and want to be with me. And if they don’t then that’s OK because there is a wide wide world out there of people who would love me and want to be with me. I also realized that I could never ever give one person that much power. I could never be so into a person that I loose myself. I also realized that I had the capacity to love with a full heart and love unconditionally. I really didn’t know I had that in me, as I was quite a self-centered person.
It’s important to note that after we had broken up, I told my mom about us. I was locked up my room (probably crying) and my mom slipped me a note under the door. Her note read something to effect that in time I would like back and wonder why I was ever into ”him” and some other things. I slipped the note back under the door and said “it was a she”. And she replied that she loved me. And that was that.
I really didn’t have many encounters with girls while in college, except for one half drunk encounter with a good friend. But it wasn’t anything newsworthy…nor did we do anything than feel each other up.
Was I totally healed? No
Did I move on? Slowly but surely
Sophomore Year of College
At this point I am still friends with my HS buddies. I am hearing from J how she saw T. T (my ex-girlfriend), she said was T asking about me. T asked for my phone number…J gave her my email address. J was lucky she was in NY and I was in PA because I wanted to beat her with a stick. I was upset that she did that since she knew all I had went through after our breakup. But as I was learning J liked drama and if she could stir the pot…she would.
I can’t remember how or when T contacted me. But I do know that I was off to visit her at her school one cold day in September…
No, I’m not kidding, there really is such a thing. A brave young woman, Erin Davies was victim of hate crime in Albany, NY. Because of sporting a rainbow sticker on her VW Beetle, Erin’s car was vandalized, left with the words “fAg” and “u r gay” placed on the hood and driver side of her car. Despite initial shock and embarrassment, Erin’s decided to embrace what happened and film a documentary about her 58-day cross country tour around the US and Canada in her car known worldwide as the fagbug. The film follows Erin’s quest to drive her vandalized car over the course of one year and is scheduled to hit the film festival circuit in early 2009.
