Barely There

I went to work today with my glasses on and a bare face. That is to say, I didn't wear any makeup. I don't know how many of y'all know the Midwest, but we Midwestern women like our makeup. That's not to say we necessarily apply it well or pick shades that are right for our us or our current decade, but we know the value of a good lipstick -- especially when we're trying, even if we're just putting our best foot forward at church on Sunday morning.

I don't remember the last time I went out to see people I know without makeup on. But there was something about this morning (aside from my pills-and-booze minihangover) that made me not want to try. I wasn't giving up, per se, but I was giving in -- to the temptation of sadness, maybe. All week I've been swooshing and jangling about in bright outfits and touseled blond hair and megajewelry to put my pain on mute. Today, I wore black and the small diamond studs that the Boyf gave me two and a half years ago.

Maybe it was the giving in that caused me to e-mail N.

After writing and deleting a billion potential works of prose, I sent him three short sentences succinctly expressing the fact that it was possible that I was going crazy. I hadn't contacted him since I ended things. He was nice about my e-mail. Says he wants to be there for me. Says he has "regrets" about how everything unfolded. Yes. Yes. Don't we all? Don't ALL of us -- every single person reading this -- have regrets about our failed relationships?

I'm coming to the conclusion that N tried. My black-and-white version of the story was always, "I tried. He didn't. The end." Truth be told, in his own barely visible way, he tried. But, as Sunny said today (sorry, Sunny, I'm lifting from you for this post), "He gave 100 percent, and that was 60 percent of what you wanted." It just. Wasn't. Enough.

I love big. I expect big in return. Emotions drip out of me like I'm a saturated kitchen sponge -- every time someone touches me, I gush. When N touches me, I pour rivers. I still do. I still love that man more than any man I've ever loved in my natural born life, but he and I are (to quote my friend P) "wired differently." N is dry, even when he tries to be wet. I wish so much that he weren't.

I think about my apartment now -- how haphazard everything is, how neglected it all looks. The good news is that I'm puzzling out how to change that. I fantasize about wiping off my windowsill and hanging the (awesome) framed poster I just received in the mail. My apartment isn't all I think about, but I do think about it sometimes. Maybe this weekend I will get the impetus to organize it and then I will try.