My heart is broken today.

I’m OK. I’ll be all right.¹

But: Jésus fucking Cristo, life hurts for no good, goddamn reason.

I told my mom, who called me after I texted her I was dumped today, the worst part of being a therapized² 41yo in a moment like this is I have no choice but to be calm, careful, and articulate, while, inside, I am welcoming all the emotions so they don’t murder me later in a work call, and yeah, it’s an introspective bloodbath.

I saw a reddit post a day or so ago about how people with ADHD think of their brains as independent entities with wills of their own. I’ll add that they’re malicious.³

Mine wants me to believe I caused this. Mine wants me to believe if I’d just been a little more whatever-the-fuck, I’d have a partner.

Soon after Erin, I met Beth. Things clicked like they should. Conversation never stopped except for sex, which was often and fun.⁴ We worked out each rare disagreement rationally and reasonably.

My friends met her. My dad met her. My mom met her. I met her mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew.

We talked about traveling, moving places, we had plans to pick from.

Beth’s 47 in a week, I’m 41 now. My point with all this shit is neither of us was trying to waste the other’s time. We fucking went for it.

Then, about two or three weeks ago, she started acting colder toward me. She’d warm up, but not until I’d listened to her vent for awhile and massaged her shoulders for at least 30 minutes.

Her work picked up. She’s a small business owner. It’s just her. She’s an independent contractor with a DBA. So her schedule filled up. I told her I was fine with this. I was.⁵ We’d talk when we could, text often, and see each other when convenient.

Tonight, I called her. She didn’t answer. No big deal. An hour later, she called me back. Great. We talked about work. Her workday was great. I mean, really great. I was and am happy for her. She’s making her dream happen. I can’t hate that. I talked about my work, she told me, in so many words, according to me, not to be naïve. I told her I won’t be, but I’m excited to have a paying client. She reminded me I shouldn’t be naïve. I reminded her I heard her the first time.

I changed the subject. Her birthday is next week. I asked her if I could see her on her birthday, which is on Wednesday.

That’s when her tone changed and she said, “I’m sorry. I’m taking the coward’s way out. I didn’t want to do this in person because I didn’t want to see you react.”

I had just bought her $100 worth of her favorite candies and a cat-themed tote bag. I planned to drop it on her doorstep if she didn’t have time to see me, and was asking about seeing her to figure out whether she’d be home to receive the gift so the candies wouldn’t get fucked up by weather or animals.

She told me about how “this” wasn’t good for her, now that business is picking up, and how it probably wasn’t good for me, either. I didn’t respond.

She … I … What the fuck?

She said some other shit and apologized some more. I didn’t respond.

It got quiet. I said, “OK. I’ll let you go. Good night.”

Listening to The Weakerthans, if you’re curious. Seems to match my mood. Finished Fallow, on Reconstruction Site now. Might be a little to hopeful. Switching to Jets to Brazil.

1. Repeat until it’s true, I guess.
2. not a word, and she called me on it, and I told Ma to back the fuck off.
3. I’m more angry at my brain than I’ve ever been at any woman.
4. Took me several minutes to finish this sentence because sex was like nothing I’ve ever known. We talked through all of it, gave each other exactly what we wanted, over and over, and, fuck, it was better than good.
5. Seriously. I’d send her texts like, “Good morning, I hope your day goes well” and, “I know you’re busy, just wanted to tell you you’re hot and I love you.