21.11.2023
It’s our anniversary.
Not our wedding anniversary, the one before that. The one he apparently remembers the date of.
For years I’ve made posts about how it’s been however many years since my last first date and posted pictures of us so much younger, so naive.
It’s funny, after that first date I was not swept off my feet, I didn’t care if there was a second. If I’m completely honest I left that date and went and crawled into another guys bed. Not a guy I was seeing seriously, but one where things were simple and we used each other for what we needed.
He was persistent though. So there was a second, and then a third. He listened to me when I talked, he did all the little things. He seemed old fashioned and it was something I hadn’t experienced before. It was over a month before he kissed me, another month or two before we slept together. I can’t say there were ever giant sparks, but it grew into something that I thought was beautiful… and safe.
There are many things that led us to where we are now. I place a lot of blame on him, but I’m sure I own a big part of the fault as well. I felt duped, betrayed, so many things… but he was not the safe choice and now what we have is far from beautiful.
I was not looking to celebrate this year. This is sad now, there is no joy. Getting him to go for a meal with me once or twice a year has been like a punishment to him for years, and all he does while we’re out is complain, so I thought the day would pass without a word.
But we had one of those really big ugly fights this past weekend, for the few days after the really bad ones he has been extra nice recently. I call it the honeymoon period. I use to look forward to these days when the bad fights started, now I would prefer that he continued to ignore me.
He came home this afternoon and announced he was taking me to my favourite restaurant for supper. I had no interest in going out and pretending after a long shitty day of work, but if I said no it would most definitely lead to a fight that I didn’t have in me.
Even the getting ready process was hard… forget the fact that all I want to do is go to bed, but I needed to do forty things for him before we could go while trying to get ready myself.
Supper starts the way I expect it to. I order a cocktail before I’ve even taken off my coat. He’s already complaining because you have to pull the menu up using a QR code on your phone. As soon as the waitress comes back I order a bottle of wine.
He complains about his beer, he complains about the food, about the painting on the wall, the soap in the bathroom… my food and wine are delicious.. in fact why don’t I get another bottle? I nod in agreement and try to just get through.
My tongue is looser than it should be… I make some remarks that would usually set him off, but he lets them roll off his shoulders. That’s not typical for him. And the I said the wrong thing, it’s not even something that I even understand now why it would have upset him, let alone make him lose his shit. Evening done.
He took my jeep and left. I headed to another bar where a friend usually works but he wasn’t there. After a drink I climbed in a cab and hoped he wouldn’t be there when I got home.
He wasn’t there. A was watching a movie when I got home, so I crawled in beside her. She curled into me and I let the ugliness of the night go.
It didn’t last long before he came through the door. Minutes later there’s yelling, A is crying and I just want to go back to the minutes before where there was a moment of beauty.
He left again not too long after. There was no way to find the moment with A again, she was sad now. I stayed with her till she fell asleep.
At least the honeymoon was over again. I’m done pretending for the day. Im still half tipsy so this is probably ramblings.
I hope that this time next year Im past the ugly, maybe even seeking out the beautiful things in life again.