breaking up with me

i swear, if i were dating myself, i would ditch me, dump me, tear up my shirts, toss my belongings out the window, and line the cat's litter box with old photos of our happier times together...

do you ever feel that way?

i am so unbelievably cruel to myself sometimes. cruella deville cruel. cruel like farrah fawcett's husband in the burning bed cruel. except in my tv movie, clemency is not an option. i can't very well burn my own bed. well, i could, but then where would i put all of my dirty clothes?

anyhooo...

this morning, per usual, i was rushing out the door, changing bags, from the chic tote that accompanied me to the first ever Vagina Warrior's Dance Party last nite (it's an eve ensler thing. i shook her hand, btw! i feel more brilliant, and my vagina? ready to kick some misogynistic ass!) to the hefty hunter green Jansport that has traveled with me from georgia to mississippi to colorado to new york to england and back again, usually filled with more crapola than it is built to carry (hence the reason i've had to had have it replaced 3 times by taking advantage of jansport's lifetime warranty. i abuse my bags almost as badly as i abuse myself. sadly, i do not come with a similar warranty).

i couldn't find something. truth be told, i don't even remember what it was i couldn't find - it was that important.

but, i couldn't...find...it. that was the point. and IT was driving me craaaaazy.

you know, what kind of crazy i'm talking out. the not quite sane crazy. the holy shit, if someone were to witness me behaving like this, they would not be remiss in dialing bellevue - crazy.

suddenly, as if summoned by my frustration, scary toothless man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth donning the requisite white "wifebeater" tank appears over my shoulder and growls -

you are so fucking stupid.

whaaaat? excuuuuuse me?

yes. you. you are so fucking stupid, and you don't deserve to have anything nice b/c you always lose it.

and the thought that lept into my head with a surprisingly quick curtsy to submissiveness was...

i know. i am.

sorry.

whoa. eeks. ouch.

here you are, ladies and gentlemen! mr. major dysfunction! in person. right here in my living room. appearing nightly. lounging on my couch. eating cheetos in my bed, leaving a trail of neon orange crumbs behind him like a psychotic hansel so i cannot forget him. who knew i had an abusive husband lurking in my psyche?

well, i did. he's the same guy that looks in the mirror in the morning and heckles me:

hey, fat girl.

he slips post-it notes into the lunch i pack for work:

everyone here i sooo much smarter than you.

(sometimes i wonder why i don't just self-flagellate in the mornings like some of those folks did in the vatican city just before the pope's death. i mean really. just to get it out of the way. physically abusing myself might very well be less painful and time consuming than the mental torture i regularly dole out. i might actually have time for laundry.)

something interesting happened this morning though.

i ignored him.

well, sort of. like all bad boyfriends, he knows what strings to pull to make me doubt me. i've been a well-behaved marionette for years, but i'm slowly unraveling the strings that connect me to him. oh, don't get me wrong, sistah. i still have thoughts of self-abuse (as evidenced by my nutso behavior this morning), but the difference is that i now take less of the action. i just sit back and listen to his ike turner rantings and observe the bitter little thoughts that shimmy in and act as his back-up singers.

it's weird. i suddenly start to feel compassion for the bastard.

wow, he must have really experienced some screwed up stuff to have turned out this way.

so then, it's the darndest thing, i start to experience compassion for someone even more important:

me - the lead singer.

so, i'm breaking up with me...or him, or whomever that poor-little-wounded thing-in-beast's-clothing is. i've packed his things, given him back his class ring, thrown out the bags of stale cheetos, crushed all of the mix tapes he made me, and lined my cat's litter box with the old photos (he looks really good in shit brown, by the way). he'll probably come back and knock on my door, or serenade my window from the giant redwood tree out back, but i won't hear him.

i'm busy writing my own damn music.