I’ve always been the type to change my mind. And it’s not
like I entered into something with the thought I was going to change my mind,
it’s just that I would. I would enter a decision knowing that this time, this
time would be different and I would be able to follow through with it. I
wouldn’t chicken out. I remember, once, I was standing in line for a roller
coaster. I mean, I was deathly afraid of heights but I was so sick of being
afraid. I just wanted to go, so that I could say I did it. I knew there was
nothing that I should actually be afraid of; I knew I was safe. But, each
jarring step made my stomach drop lower and my heart rise higher into my
throat. I still walked forward and berated myself mercilessly for my cowardice.
I remember sliding into the cool seat and fastening the harness. My face was
dry at that point. The tears weren’t coming, and I was going to ride that damn
beast. And then the bored looking girl came to check my seatbelt, make sure I
hadn’t fucked up the simple task of tightening it (some people are idiots) and
I burst into a snotty groveling mess, and I begged her to let me off. I
couldn’t go through with it. I could see her annoyance, and my fellow
passengers scowl, and I knew that what they saw was a bratty childish girl who
didn’t know what she wanted. I was too scared to go through with it and I
didn’t know how else to react. I wanted to stop before anything happened;
before I had a chance that I couldn’t say no again.
And really, that’s how I am with anything. I take it as far
as I can, til the last possible second, and then I stop it before it’s too late
to stop it. I don’t know why I’ve been that way. Before I met, well, him.
Before I met him, I was engaged once. He was wrong. He was a short,
manipulative dick. I knew I didn’t like him or the games that he insisted on
playing. I didn’t like the way that he made me feel, as if I was lucky to be
with him and I didn’t deserve anyone who would like me back. I listened to the
way he would talk about his ex-girlfriends, and his brothers’ exes, and I
thought that I had to stay with him just so I could avoid being a future ex and
having someone talk about me in that same awful tone with that horrible look. I
remember, that I went to stay with his family, and he was staying in a different
house. And he snuck in through the screen door in the middle of the night. And
I should have made it clear that that was wrong and disgusting and never had
spoken to him again at that moment, but I didn’t. I told him not to do it
again, and I stayed, and I hated every advance that he made, and I despised his
fat creeping fingers, and his breath, and I hated his touch. I begged him to
stop and he said “I know you care about me because you let me touch you even
though it makes you uncomfortable and even though you’re asking me to stop”. I
was weak.
I broke up because I was too afraid to spend my life with a
man I knew I hated, and whose children I would probably end up hating too.
I don’t hate you. I want to tell you before I go on that I
don’t hate you. I don’t know how I feel and I can’t describe it, but I know I
couldn’t ever hate you because you’re more than me, and you’re mine. I didn’t
hate….well, I didn’t hate him. I don’t know how I felt, but I think that I was
with him because I was playing chicken with myself. I wanted to see how far I
would go before I said no, but when I was with him, I was not afraid so I never
said no. But I realize now that’s because it isn’t over, because of, well, you.
Because of what that situation is, I still have the chance to back out and to
stop everything and to start over.
I wish, that if my mom was confronted with the choice, that
she would have chosen differently than she did. Then, maybe, I never would have
had to play this weird game with myself, and I wouldn’t have put anyone else at
risk. I wouldn’t have felt the need to go walking at 4 in the morning in dark
and deserted streets.
I can’t say no, though, because you might say it for me. And
this time, I’m not making the choice for myself. Maybe it is too late even
though the doctors say it technically isn’t and even though the people who
think overpopulation is a threat think that I have no right to you. Maybe if I
say yes, and I don’t stop this insanity then I have made the wrong decision.
There’s no right thing to do now, and I just have to muddle
through. I need to make some sort of decision soon, and I am so tired of
waiting and thinking in circles. But there’s no straight line that makes sense.
And I could talk to, well. I could talk to him. But then he’d run because
you’re not his the same way that you’re mine. And how could I call you a
mistake? I mean, we both willfully committed the act knowing all of the
possible outcomes and nothing is ever 100 percent.
If he runs, then he runs. I won’t hold him and I don’t know
if I want to hold him. But I’m buckled in and I’m not going to cry to have
someone save me from this. I’m tired of running away and I’ve put myself into
this. Maybe you’ll end up being one of those “Despite All” stories. And I think
I could live with that.
I don’t know though. I don’t know what my mind is, so I
can’t change it. I guess that’s something?
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