A Breakup Tale In So Many Parts

Part 56: 64 days, 15 hours, 28 minutes since you left me...

My head is cocked to the side like a puppy when you call it for the first time from across the room.
The mental hairdo is gently braided into two Swiss Miss plaits on either side of my puppy head.
I am Gretel, the Burnese Mountain Dog.
And things have been ruff.
Oh God, my sides...!
It all goes back to my childhood, doesn't it, and the dysfunction suffered at the hands of my family, doesn't it? Yup, oh yup, yupster.
Screw  me running. Seriously. Screw me as I start the marathon, keep screwing me whilst I turn the corners, continue the screwage as I pass the other runners and blow your load when I reach the finish line.
See, here's how it works: I grew up in an abusive and alcoholic home, where I was called "insane", "crazy", "stupid", "toxic", "judgemental"... all the things my current alcoholic friend was calling me this weekend as I tried sooooo desperately to unchain his fervent soul.
So here I was braiding layer upon layer, intertwining story upon story, pattern over pattern, so that they blend perfectly together and sit prettily on my head. My father=my best friend=my family=my family=my best friend=my father....my God. All entwined and repeating itself over and over in the course of four days.
My sexuality, sensuality, intimacy, attractiveness... were all called ugly and negated after being celebrated and revered. Once again, I was loved and reviled by someone I cared so much about and loved far too much; gave admittance and permission to and kept going back, kept granting him access to hook me into his unmanageable world.
It's like he held up a shiny object in his right hand and while I was distracted by it, he shanked me in the side with a homemade blade, then apologized and did it again. Over and over. Because I trusted him and loved him, I let him dress the wound and then do it again until there was nothing left to stab and I lay in pieces on the ground.
Until, finally, he told me to go to hell, he was done with me. Oh, no. I wasn't done. I wasn't done fixing him. So I became unmanageable. I went to his home to talk to him. I wouldn't let him go. It was the most ridiculous thing I could do. He wasn't even there and I waited like a fool... like a sick person would do.
Because I had become a sick person.
And we argued on the phone as he sat in a bar and I sat at his house and he didn't even have the courage to face me, to come and tell me to leave face to face. He was "gonna call the cops". He said I was out of line and I was out of line.
Because I had become a sick person.
I drove away from his house after a while and we still argued on the phone. I went to the place where he and I used to go when we were kids and sat with the engine running, remembering when...
I listened to him say hello to someone he knew in that bar... someone he knew in that bar... a watering hole, like where my father used to go... where my father used to go and my stomach began to turn as he said, "None of my friends and I fight like this, none of my friends do this to me," and I said "I know you better!" and he hung up.
I left messages and I let him have it. Did he hear me? No. Did I feel better? Yeah.
I do, though. Know him better.
I know him better.
That's the long and short of it. I know him better and I won't let him destroy his life, so I can't be in it anymore.
I know him better and I can't let him destroy my life, so I can't be in it anymore.
Kinda like my dad.
I love them both, very, very much.
I have room in my heart for him, always.
Just no more room in my life.