Then he called (after the time we were supposed to be getting together) to inform me that he was running late. All his problems were magically solved, apparently, but he wouldn't tell me what was going on, but promised to later. He still had a friend to see, and would be home at 8. It hurt, but I was reeling, and stunned, so I tried to fix the problem as best I could, agreeing to meet him in Lansing in hopes of gaining a half hour of his time, and hung up. After I hung up I realized how hurt and upset I was by this, particularly after the rough week we'd had. So I buttoned up my lip, got in the car, and drove to Lansing to kill time. Fishtailed my minivan a few times in the snowstorm I shouldn't have been driving in. Ran some meaningless errands. Sat at Barnes and Noble and read a book which didn't interest me enough to buy it. Waited for my cel phone to ring. Got more and more upset, not less.
It rang at 8. We got together. At this point I was so upset that I couldn't help but cry. It was great; we were in public, and I lost it completely. I'm pretty sure I embarrassed him horribly, and we cancelled our date and went home. On the way home he just about lost his patience with me. If I had told him I was upset about the three hours he wanted to spend with his friend, he would have cancelled it. It was the third time I'd done something like that, concealing my emotions from him to try to not be a heel, and it really upsets him. I promised him total honesty. Instead, he says I'm lying by omission when I don't tell him how I feel. I was completely mortified, and feel terrible about it. He was sad, and hurt that I did this to him. I said I would try to improve. This was only three times, I was sure I could get better at it. He said it was part of my personality, and he wanted me to be myself, which includes things like this.
I'm not the person he thought I was. Of course this terrified the hell out of me, and I told him so, with much more weeping. But then he told me that he loves me just as much as ever, and would still want to be with me, regardless. I had hurt him by shutting him out of my feelings, and not trusting him enough to be truthful with him, and it was going to take him some time to get over. I felt guilty, and awful, and wanted to kick myself, but we were tired, and put ourselves to bed, snuggled, and watched a movie until we fell asleep.
Sunday I drove him to work, and he was still sad, and I was still feeling incredibly guilty. We didn't talk a whole lot, because we knew we wouldn't have the chance to see each other the rest of that day. He said he wasn't angry with me, but still hurt. The whole way there, I was kicking myself. Why would I do something stupid like that? It's easy to be honest with Forest. He wouldn't have taken the least bit of offense if I had said "Hey, this hurts me, don't do it." So WHY did I have to be so stupid about it?
So I went home and wrote about 9 pages of thesis, by hand, about this. I'm not going to publish it, because it would be the longest damn entry I ever wrote, and on one, single subject. Thank god, I have been writing a journal for a long time, and it helped me to figure something out.
After three hours of writing like a fiend, I found my answer. What was it that I just couldn't face in these three incidents, when I couldn't share my feelings openly with Forest? It's pain. Ever since I was a little kid, I don't deal with pain. Something hurts me, I ignore it and persist. For example, I was raised in ballet. Ballet, by nature, hurts your feet immensely. You smile, you maim yourself, and you go on. Another example: I fell down and scraped most of the skin off my face a few days before I started kindergarten. I went to school anyway, and just didn't look at myself in the mirror. I denied to all the kids and my teacher that there was anything wrong with me. When my parents got divorced (which wasn't so popular back then) I hugged my daddy goodbye, didn't cry, and got on with my life. I remember at the time a lady from my church tried to get me to talk about the pain of losing my dad over ice cream one day, and I asked her to please take me home instead. When I was pregnant as a teenager, half of my friends conveniently forgot who I was, and most of them stopped calling me aside from when I confronted them. My parents weren't proud of me anymore. I couldn't participate in any of my usual activities. I straightened my spine, spent my newfound free time getting all A's, and went on to college, leaving it all behind. I couldn't admit to Jeff when he hurt me, because I denied most of it, and when I did mention it once in a fit of desperation, he would just say he didn't understand why I stuck around, anyway. I eventually, of course, realized that these things were painful. Sometimes days later, sometimes years. I didn't realize my parents' divorce hurt me until nearly a decade later.
I'm a tough girl. Physically or emotionally, if you throw me on my head, kick me in the face, or whatever, and unless I'm broken beyond repair, I keep fighting. It's sort of a good thing. But it's sort of an unhealthy thing. When I told Forest what I'd discovered, later, he said that it's true. His analogy was that when life throws him lemons, he makes lemonade. When life throws me lemons, I eat them, peels and all. Neither one of us thinks that's very healthy, so we're going to try to help each other get past this. I'm going to try to put the brakes on a conversation the second I feel that boot to the stomach, that gut-reflex of pain, so that I won't shut him out of those feelings (which means I won't be hurting him that way.) I'm going to try to communicate it, and acknowlege it. He's going to try to help me with those things. We'll see if that improves things. I really hope it does. I'm a little afraid that I won't be a tough gal anymore when this is over, but then again, why should I need to be so tough with Forest? I shouldn't. I've got no need to defend myself from him, and I shouldn't belittle him by hiding things from him just because they are painful to me, no matter how small or trivial they are.
He says that in order to be a good match with me, he needs to know how I feel so he can respond and act accordingly. He doesn't like it when I allow him to unknowlingly hurt me like that, and I can't say I blame him. My feelings are important to him. It's a bit hard for me to get used to that idea, but I think I like it.
By the end of the day, he seemed to be done licking his wounds, and we were both feeling a bit better. We went out for a late night dinner at Denny's, and had a really nice time, talking, and catching up on our lives as though we hadn't seen each other in years, when really we had talked every day. We'd missed each other, I think, even though we had been seeing each other all along. Both of our smiles came back, and I started to feel that our connection became stronger, not weaker. I felt at home in him again, and we didn't want the evening to end. Inevitably it did, as our days always end, with arms around each other, kisses, and whispers of love. Even on his worst days we still had that. It's a comfort to know that we can get through our first conflict, and may eventually end up being closer to each other because of it.
But it sure made for a hellish weekend. I think he's as emotionally exhausted as I am. I wasn't ready to go to work today at all. I really want to just spend a day with him, but that's just not possible. Don't I wish.
On a completely seperate note, I got a call from a radiologist today to say that they found another fracture in my dumb toe, this one down in the joint, which is why they missed it the first time. I get to go in to see my doctor again tomorrow, so he can decide what to do about it. It doesn't even hurt that much anymore, but I guess it's important that we make sure it heals straight, so I'll go in, like they told me to. It's just going to be somewhat tricky to cram into my schedule. I've got a 1 PM meeting in Grand Rapids, and a 4:15 appointment in East Lansing. I should be able to make it, as long as the meeting doesn't run late. I hope to high heaven they don't put me in a cast. It doesn't really bother me, and a cast would put a serious crimp in my ability to do Tae Kwon Do, and the weight training I want to do with Shelly. It would also mean I couldn't drive very well, which is a serious problem, since I commute to work every day. Cross your fingers for me, please.
A rare post script, a few hours later:
It occurred to me (thanks to Shelly's email) that the above entry details only my end of the tale, and only the parts that really upset me. Forest did not blame this whole thing on me, and took responsibility too. I didn't include any of the things he said that didn't make me feel bad, so I think he comes off as a bit of a monster in this episode. Don't worry, he's far from it.
