Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a Boy who loved me very very much. In fact, this particular Boy loved me more passionately, with more unabashed zeal, attentiveness and dedication than any other man in my life ever did, right up until three years ago. This superior love far outweighed anything I’d ever experienced, including that of The Other Guy I was currently in a long-term relationship with.

It all started out very harmlessly, as these things always do. We went to tiny local concerts together and made mix tapes and wrote postcards for each other when we were apart during the summer and there was nothing romantic about it or evident of any sort of ulterior motive. We both had significant others that we loved and we talked about them regularly, although more often than not his shared anecdotes were more pleasant than mine as I was prone to crying on his shoulder, sobbing about how The Other Guy had lied to me again or had been overheard talking badly about me or was just not giving me what I wanted in general. Over time, however, his words of encouragement and reassurance became more intimate than friendly and I found that mine were following suit. Suddenly, we realized we were in the throes of very deep, very unexpected emotions.

Soon, we were spending even more time together and flirting with the idea of “where this could go” and really becoming overwhelmed with emotion and excitement of new love. And then he pulled out the stops and broke it off with his girlfriend to offer himself to me exclusively. On my birthday that year, he lined all 10 miles of the major highway route to our school with signs that said “Happy Birthday, Elle!” and planted a banner in the front with the same message. He stuffed 20 empty glass bottles with varied hand-written loveletters and gave them to me for Valentine’s Day. He adored my family, he came around whenever he could, he always kept up with how I was feeling, what I needed, what I would need… he was everything I had ever wanted and I was enamored with him.

And there wasn’t much not to like, really. He was one of those kids who came from a rough upbringing and somehow beat the snot out of the status quo. He was more determined and driven than any single person I’ve ever met to this day but, even more importantly, he kept about him this constant attitude of optimism and joy. He was a spiritual guy who always kept that at the top of his list, even though there was no parental figure holding a gun to his head to do so (This was a new concept to me.) and he was proud of that aspect of himself. He even took me to my first and only Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. He was open-minded, healthy, successful, friendly, joyful, spiritual, ambitious, creative, resilient… the list could go on.

The problem, of course, was that I was an emotional wreck of biblical, Jericho-like proportions. Usually, these stories have that pathetic theme: “Girls only want bad guys and nice guys finish last.” but this time it doesn’t apply at all, surprisingly. The truth was that I’d always wanted to be with someone like him; who doesn’t? And, specifically, I wanted him. But I - being submerged and brainwashed with self-loathing and general desperate insecurity - was positive that I was not deserving of this sort of happiness, that somehow I was going to screw it all up and only be reminded of how undeserving I was in the aftermath.

And me, never being one to pass up the opportunity to fulfill a personal prophecy, went ahead and did just that.

(WARNING: This is where the Crazy kicks in. Also, the Pathetic. I sound like a complete, psycho-ex-girlfriend-stalker-type loon from here on out. Just be forewarned.)

So, in unbelievably predictable fashion, I cowardly sprinted back to The Other Guy in the “safe” dysfunctional relationship I was familiar and “comfortable” within. (For those of you who haven’t spent years in therapy and/or 12-step meetings, this is textbook codependent/addict behavior. The more you knooow.) My heart ached as the Boy kept coaxing me to come with him and let him make me happy after I’d told him my decision, but once I’d finally settled on my choice, I transformed into something very very sinister and hideous.

From where I sit now I can only come up with one theory as to how my mind possibly justified my behavior immediately after this, but that doesn’t make it any less excusable or blatantly insane. I guess because I was genuinely ruled by the staunch belief that I was worthless, unimportant and undesirable, my mind concluded that anyone who would bother to try to romance me was a moron. I’ve discussed it before, but for years I had a very Eeyore vernacular, always thanking people for paying attention to me or thinking of me and always wondering why in hell I was included in any sort of social engagements at all. When I started dating The Other Guy in my earlier high school years I was just amazed that any male would find me desirable at all, so I settled for that and assumed that I was lucky to have even obtained that much. So, when I see the Boy continuing to go out of his way to make me feel wonderful and show me his affection and shower me with adulation, I start to think there must be something wrong with him.

Soon, I’m treating the Boy like a pathetic, lost puppy who is intent on over-romanticizing everything and must be desperate to still be pursuing me. I start mocking him and emasculating him, both to our mutual friends and to his face. I ignore his calls, laugh at his attempts to talk to me like a concerned friend, and try desperately to swat away any remaining emotions I may be experiencing.

Jesus Christ, it just seems so arrogant and ridiculous from where I am now… anyway.

When we got to college a number of months later, I found myself feeling remorseful and missing his company but, still tumbling down a slope of self-destruction, my attempts at apologies were always overshadowed by my desperate loneliness and my hopes that maybe he’d come back and try to rescue me again. Any formal apologies I initiated always turned into a weepy, clingy drama fest in which I would be torn between desire and guilt while he would just be trying to figure out what the hell he could do to escape without causing me to implode. Naturally, his resistence in these conversations translated through my insecurity as blatant rejection and sent me into even more despair. (Like I said: I. Was. In. Sane.)

Honestly, I just thank God he had the integrity and self-assuredness to get the hell away from me instead of letting me drag him into a quagmire of Crazy. It’s one of those things that’s rather admirable about him.

Anyway, I left that college after I hit Rock Bottom: Episode I in 2003. We kept in touch here and there but it was always kind of strange and stilted. Frankly, I was so amazed that he’d waste any more time talking to me at all that I didn’t care what our meetings were like, but I always felt that he saw me as some sort of charity effort and I fought not to loathe myself for that.

Presently, we’re both married to people we’re insane about. All he ever wanted was to find someone to love, get married, and start a family and, like with everything else in his life, he did exactly that right after he graduated college. We speak when we can, although conversations are always in that cordial, scripted, “Hi, how are you, I’m doing well, it’s good to hear from you.” kind of language you use on loose acquaintences and your parents’ friends. While I know there will never be any more singing or giggling or sharing absurdities, I am quietly heartbroken at the knowledge that there will never be any reminiscience - happy or otherwise - between us and the realization that this is entirely my fault.

I found myself thinking about all of this after I recently came across a friendly “Hi, how are you…” message from him in my inbox from many months ago. And I realized that, even after all these years of real, intense apologies that I’ve had to issue to pretty much everyone I’d ever spoken to before I got sober, I never bothered to give him one. Yeah, there were a half-dozen of those drunken, blubbering apology sessions I previously mentioned but I’m positive those couldn’t have been taken seriously.

So, after 8 years I sat down and wrote him a letter in which I sincerely apologize as a sober, [mostly] sane, self-realized adult. Truthfully, I really hate doing that sort of thing after all this time because it kind of makes me look like some obsessive freak who can’t let things go and needs to rehash shit that other people have obviously laid to rest and gotten over. Most of the time I feel like I’d be better off just leaving it alone. And heaven forbid if this somehow gets misconstrued as me trying to instigate trouble or something else.

But, as per my Twelve Step practice, I know it’s something I’m responsible for and, even if I never hear from him ever again, he deserves to hear at least one sober, sincere apology from me. And frankly, if I went to my grave knowing that I didn’t grow a pair and give that to him, I’d never rest peacefully.

However, THIS? THIS is what we should be talking about in those government-funded D.A.R.E. programs. “Hey kids, you shouldn’t drink because one day you’re going to have to look at all the carnage in your rearview, pull a U-ey and clean it all up.”

It used to make me sad when pop culture made fun of dysfunction, primarily of the WASP-y family variety. (And when I say “WASP” here, I don’t mean the literal meaning of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, I’m referring to the social connotations and stereotypes associated with this sect of people, particularly of the upper or upper-middle class variety.) I first felt this way when I watched “Will and Grace” and they loved to highlight the incredible mental fuckery of Will’s Connecticut-based family who did the stereotypical behaviors of ignoring their children’s unorthodox principles, sweeping blatant conflict under the rug and allowing it to manifest into drinking problems and mental/emotional instability, denying any destructive, self-loathing behavior to live life in perpetual stagnation and misery, and working so hard to keep up with the Joneses and create an ideal appearance that they breed more self-loathing, distrust, empty materialism, etc. Oh, and this was the fine, successful life they encouraged their offspring to embrace and aspire to. The same could be said about the pill-popping Karen Walker character who laughed about her broken marriage and loveless existence by criticizing everyone, spending money wildly, and drowning any hint of emotion in booze. The more I started paying attention, the more I recognized the apparent public appeal of making jokes about privileged, wealthy white people (not all of these people, by the way. Nothing here is ever a complete blanket generalization.) and their insane, destructive behavior that stems from the drive to show of wealth and prestige. And not only this, it was also funny to make fun of the copious antidepressants and therapy treatments we resort to because of this very broken, sick mentality. And on top of that, (and perhaps what makes all this the most absurd) this sort of humor was/is never geared toward outside minorities; it was/is always directed and marketed to the very people who fit the description.

Originally, it seemed tragic to me that family dysfunction was rampant enough to become a public joke that everyone watching could understand and relate to. Had we become so jaded with this comfortable, accepted societal insanity that we were able to gloss over the pain of it and make it yet another important issue we swept under the rug?

And then as I got older and began to see these exact traits and stereotypes within members of my own family (not all of us) and the incredible pain and destruction it caused, I started laughing with the others out there who had stepped outside the brainwashing, became a little introspective and driven toward self-improvement, and didn’t settle for perpetuating any more ignorant, stubborn, emotionally disengaged lifestyles. Elated to be amongst like-minded people who were free of their pasts, I finally got the joke:

If we didn’t learn to laugh at the complete vapid uselessness and the absurdity of what we’d seen and experienced, we’d never ever make it as whole people… if we made it out at all.

I’m one of those people who can’t stand it when she’s right and nobody else sees it. It’s definitely one of my most obnoxious flaws, being that I’m susceptible to standing around and arguing anything I strongly believe in (gay marriage, the importance of certain musicians, etc.) until I’m blue in the face with the real [ridiculous/fruitless/impossible] intent of making the other person change their mind. Pathetic. My husband loves this quirk of mine because he loves saying things he knows will set me off and watching me lay into him until I realize he’s just messing with me. ::: sigh :::

However, the one thing I’ve learned that I cannot ever do - for the sake of maintaining integrity and dignity-  is convince someone of the flaws and evil I see in specific other people; no matter how badly I may want crappy human beings to be exposed and rejected from other people, I don’t have any power to actually make that happen. And I also realize that wanting to be validated for my personal opinions of someone I don’t like is unbelievable in its immaturity. It is petty, it is juvenile, it is indicative of insecurity, and it’s an undeniable qualification for a stupid, meddling, horrible person. These all being things I try to avoid, I’ve learned to keep my persuasive smack-talking way waaaay at bay (though I’m still prone to slip-ups that usually only reenforce the inherent fruitlessness of these efforts.) And still, even the selfish, unspoken craving of this emotional vindication is pretty pathetic.

:::smirks:::

This being said, when my feelings about someone I loathe are completely validated from a friend/colleague/peer without any hint of prompting from me, it is impossible for me not to cackle wildly in my completely sad, petty, immature little mind… and then be a little proud of it.

Viva Cattiness!

*name that depressed 90’s songwriter!