A
Rude Awakening
Ladies
and Gentlemen please put your hands together and give a
big I Told You So to Anna, the record holder and current
champion for Most Naïve Woman In The Whole Friggin’
Universe! Yes, once again Yours Truly has been taken for
a ride. Just when I thought I had everything under control
in walks my old pal Rupert like a big ole tornado and completely
turns my life upside down. You do remember Rupert don’t
you? The man that made me believe that there were still
good men out there, the man that made me feel like I could
be completely open and honest and not feel ashamed of who
I am, the man who made me feel like an intelligent woman
instead of a dorky little girl trapped in a thirty-three
year old woman’s body. That Rupert made me feel like
my friendship meant the world to him. That Rupert made me
laugh at myself when I got into hurtful situations, but
never in a million years did I think that he would be the
cause of one of them.
Let
me just say that I am a very forgiving person. I have a
heart as gigantic as the moon and just as deep, and it has
been my biggest weakness. I honestly think that men and
women see me as someone they can manipulate whenever the
mood strikes them because they know I won’t say anything
to stop them. I am and always have been a People Pleaser,
I can trace this behavior back to the years I spent trying
to please my mother’s second husband. I was so hungry
for any scrap of affection he threw my way that I didn’t
see him for what he really was, manipulative, cold, abusive.
I wanted to have a father so badly that I created this figure
in my mind of who he was and I held on to it for twenty
years, but five years ago my eyes were cruelly opened and
I was forced to deal with the fact that the man would never
love me, was incapable of loving me. I have followed this
pattern in many of my relationships over the years and they
have all ended the same way, me with egg on my face and
no self-esteem at all.
In
my mind I had given up on Rupert, tossed him out with all
the other emotional garbage that I had been collecting,
but my heart kept on beating to the same old tired, romantic
song. I kept thinking that he would come to his senses and
realize how much I mean to him, that he would stop running
away and let me in. What can I say? Old romantic notions
die hard. Each time he called I would be driven to distraction
because my head wanted to kick him in the ass and out the
door and my heart wanted to wrap itself around him and never
let go. I would go for weeks without hearing from him because
he would be on tour, and just when my head was about to
win he would call and I would be sucked into the tornado
again.
My
eyes have been opened again. Two months ago he left without
saying goodbye and I didn’t hear from him until the
end of September when, once again, he left for Australia
without a word. I called and emailed and called and emailed
until I finally gave up. Last week he turned up again, sang
me the same old song about how hectic his life is, how he
wants to settle down, how he cared about me, missed me,
thought about me blah blah blah. That was when I was awarded
the Most Naïve Woman In The World crown once again.
I wanted to hear those words. I was so hungry that I put
aside the fact that he had dropped me without a thought
and I focused on the man I saw in my mind. I was so happy
that he was here I didn’t think about anything else,
not about the fact that he only called me late at night
after he’d had a few, or that he didn’t invite
me to hear him play, or that he told me how many women proposition
him on a nightly basis and actually seemed proud of it.
I cared only about him. Until today.
I didn’t think that I would have to remind him of who
I was but apparently to him my voice is just like every
other woman’s. He seemed like he was in a good mood,
he laughed when he said that I had been ignoring him, ignoring
his text messages. There’s just one problem though:
I don’t have a cell phone. So whoever the woman was
that he was texting obviously sounds a lot like me, or maybe
he has so many that he just can’t tell us apart anymore.
It doesn’t end there though, when I said I didn’t
have a cell phone and there was no record of any text messages
coming through on my land line he said that he was trying
to email me. So I held out that last bit of hope as I checked
my email…I should have saved it for someone else.
So
he lied to me. He lied when he said he cared about me, thought
about me, needed me. He lied when he told me how much I
mattered to him and he lied when he said he respected me.
The old romantic is now dead and buried. I will never be
taken for a ride again, not by him or anyone else. I will
still be loving — nothing will ever change that —
but I will save it for the ones who truly deserve it. After
almost twenty-five years the title of Most Naïve Woman
In The World is now up for grabs.
I’m
abdicating.
he