The sprinklers come on at 4am.

Tuesday night I couldn't sleep. At all. It didn't even feel like my eyes were glued open against my will  or anything. I was just wide awake.
I didn't fight it for once. My roommate was up late to study but even she threw in the towel at about 2:30am, so I made a nest in the study room.

I finally got around to eating my feelings.

Excerpt from email I sent to Jenna at about 12:30am yesterday morning:

Gah, I'm crawling out of my fucking skin. I can't take this. I want to grab Mike's face and yell "DO YOU LIKE ME AS MORE THAN A FRIEND, YES OR NO?" and make him say one or the other so I can KNOW.
That doesn't mean we have to do anything about it. I just want to know how to interpret all this shit that may or may not mean anything different now that we're both single and that is at present the mental equivalent of banging my head against the desk.
I asked him to go see Inception at the RuHo on Friday, because it's free and we see the good ones when we can and I thought the walk back to his car (a shitty white Cutlass that always takes two or three turnovers to actually start--oh, God. I'm mythologizing his car. MAYDAY, Jenna.) I could ask him exactly that. He said "Maybe. Can I get back to you?" Sometimes he goes home for the weekend; maybe he was freaked out by Thursday. WHAT DOES IT MEAN??
But I can't even ask, however innocuous I want to sound, because it will always sound like I'm gunning for him. And now he's invited my suite mate, whom it turns out we both know (and I hate. There. I said it. I hate her. She has no sense of social clues whatsoever, and every time I use our shared bathroom I can hear her yapping loudly about nothing). I found out through the suite mate.
I. don't. want. to care. This feels like detox sounds, all twitchy and anxious and meanwhile I can barely look at BF's Facebook feed because it sounds so cheerful and it makes me feel like an awful person but I want to know he's as unhappy as I am so I can recognize that we actually MEANT something to each other once upon a week ago.

FUCK FUCK FUCK *bambambam*
*Breathe*

Things got better. After I decided to just stay up all night, after I finished off a jar of ranch dip with Food Lion brand tortilla chips, after I read about Mr. Rochester's secret lunatic wife (and really, how easy does the damn fool give up the ghost, as it were, after he's just straight up asked?), I did get sleepy, so I eased into my dark quiet dorm room and bed and slept for about four hours.

Yesterday I was euphoric for a couple hours in the afternoon. Yeah. Euphoric. I said it. On the way to Pysch 101 the world seemed kind and full of possibilities. I was also listening to the Killers' Hot Fuss and rediscovering why I still love that album.

This is/was my first relationship. I should mention that. I've stopped hanging out with people--friends--before but not with someone I've loved and been best friends with and know how his morning face looks for three years. Oh.

Letters I won't send.

To BF:
I'm sorry I called you again last night. It was just to let you know that I gave your camera to the front desk of your brother's workplace on Friday so they could give it to him Monday so he could give it to you...whenever the hell he said he would. Per the instructions in your letter you left for me at the front desk of my dorm.
Which annoyed the hell out of me, by the way. Is a Facebook message really so much more fucking trouble than manually writing something in pen when you type 90% of the time and had to actually travel further than the far edge of your futon to deliver the damn letter in person at a place that is still clogged with memories of, well everything? Was it really so fucking much easier to give a letter to a person so they had to flag me down instead of just hitting send your own damn self? We don't even have to be friends for you to send me a Facebook message. Embrace cyberdistance and leave my parasympathetic nervous system alone!
Ahem. You will note that everything's in there, and that I deliberately avoided Brother. I'll miss his snarkiness (I fondly recall snickering when his fake shanking turned into real sucker punches when you made a bad joke. Which was often.), his Lego catalog, and the victories of making him laugh. I won't miss feeling like I'm performing every time I talk to him.
You're a good guy, and I just want to make sure you understand immediately what I'm trying to say. I'm impatient. You know this. I want to be understood, not in an existential sense (although bonus points if that is managed), but in a clear communication sense. You know this. The way you talk around things drives me up the batshitting wall. YES or NO or I UNDERSTAND do wonders to my nerves at strategic times.
But I guess you don't really need to know that anymore, do you? No.
From:
Your ex-girlfriend who has been avoiding that label all week but needs to slap herself in the face with it until she gets use to it

Dear Mike,
I won't tell you how many times I've checked my cell phone for text messages even when I haven't heard the obnoxious unmistakable chime that doesn't mean anything else. It's embarrassing.
I won't tell you how your smell reminds me of my grandma's kitchen. You might take that as an insult (it's not; it just means you smell clean).
I won't tell you that you're the only live friend who's asked me how I'm doing. You might find that needy.
I will say thank you and DAMN IT, MAN, TELL ME I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO FELT THAT LAST THURSDAY and I'm going crazy trying to save you from being a rebound guy. You're too good for that. I like you too much for that.
I don't want to think about this anymore. Want to see a movie that will require all of our attention? It's free and really interesting.
--Your friend

Hey, Katie,
YES, I will come celebrate your birthday with you. Holy Zadie Smith YES. I want to learn how to party.
It should piss me off that you haven't responded at all when I told you about last Tuesday, but by now I really appreciate an excuse to have non-selfish, non-confusing fun.
And maybe you can demonstrate what tastes best with vodka.
Love,
Mel

Twitchy Freshman:
Just go away.

I am the only one who thinks I'm going crazy.

Dispatches from home.

Mom: "You're the only one who knows what's right for you."

Dad: "I always thought he was a little selfish."

Mom: "It's better you realized how you feel now than later."

Dad: "You need to focus on getting the next step of your own life together--not in a selfish way, but you do have a bunch of stuff coming up fast."

Mom: "Want to watch What Not to Wear?"

Dad: "Want to listen to Buddy Guy?"

This weekend, man. This weekend made me feel loved and friendless and liberated and blackly depressed, all while I was hungry but disgusted by food, checking my cell phone every ten seconds (YES, I KNOW nobody's called, texted, or raindanced at me; I KNOW it's really unlikely; I KNOW this itchy, crawly, impatient dreadful unfufilled anticipation just makes me more bored and useless and depressed, but I can't help checking, oh sweet Christ on a cracker I wish I could), reading, realizing I can still play the piano, staring at the TV, and crying and listening to Oasis and the Tragically Hip and drinking the single-serving bottle of wine that has been marinating in the bottom of my bottom sock drawer since a guy gave it to me a year and a half ago as an end-of-sophomore-year present.

"Vaccination Scar," by the Tragically Hip

I got back to BF's Facebook page filled status updates that shocked me because they sounded neutrally cheerful. Since when the fuck does he go to the library unless I (his little book nerd) suggested it?
I feel like such a bad person for being angry about this. I want to see he's hurting too, dammit.

I can't stand the stillness of being completely alone. I know I have to get through it but right now I feel like a pile of shit with amazing typing skills.

It wasn't always this way. It isn't always this way, I should say to greet the day. Sometimes it feels great.

Mom also said I shouldn't feel obligated to tell them everything about my life. Really? That's contradictory to the vibe I get every time I contact them (especially on the phone).
Like when I told her a couple hours later that I'm off birth control and plan on being celebate until next semester starts? That's probably what she meant.
To be fair, that's not a typical conversation I'd have with anyone related to me.

Goodnight, Michael, I'm going home.

My first social outing since Tuesday was inadvertently stumbling into my college's homecoming street celebration, which is called Cockfest 2010. (Our mascot is the gamecock. An angry chicken.) I meandered through said Cockfest to meet a celibate-until-marriage guy friend I find attractive.

I don't believe in the universe molding things just for little shitty ol' me, but that was an amusing train of thought.

I took Mike to dinner because he paid the last time we ate since I had forgotten all my off-campus money. Here's what happened, pulled from an email I sent Jenna this morning:

Ah, Mike. The evangelical Christian with pretty eyelashes, geeky tendencies (Star Wars is like a third wheel with us; always there and hanging out and saying stuff at random times), a warm low voice and laugh unless he's excited (then they sort of vault up the register), and love for Sarah Palin. Two of those things I disagree with. But we're a lot alike otherwise and we have great conversations, and and and. And last night we were sitting on the hood of his car and he gave me a sideways hug (hug count is up to four for this breakup) and we just sat there for a minute, me leaning on his shoulder ("You're really comfortable." "Yeah, I get that a lot." "Yeah?" "No, not really."). Our heads leaned together and we turned to look at each other before he said he should probably get home. The whole evening I had tried subtly invading his space, which didn't work, and then suddenly this.
My onion breath from dinner kept things in the friend zone. I'm glad. I went away breathless and in need of a good yank. That's not unusual, and I know exactly how to take care of it.
Last week, he sent me a text message that said, "My stats professor mentioned you in class today. He said he'd see me in front of Firehouse, walking with a beautiful girl."
Yeah. That was confusing. I left it alone (except for a thanks and some blushing to myself). I refuse to decode the subtext, because it will just make me more crazy. I don't want a boyfriend now. I want to make out with a guy who is saving 99% of all sexual acts for after he's married. When he broke up with his girlfriend (like eight or nine months ago), he talked about how he's not going to make the mistake of kissing someone strictly for lust anymore. This has been going on for the past 14 months, ever since we met in Technical Writing.

On a side note, I love the rhythm of that last clause: WALKing with a BEAUtiful GIRL.

"Good night, Melanie."
"Good night, Michael."

I like that I now seem to be able to separate what my body, heart, and head all want. Body can lust and heart can ache and head's just like, "All right, guys, take the weekend off. I know it's been hard for you both."

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going home. Dad's coming to pick me up right after my last class. The ride home might be filled with awkward talks that may or may not involve God (please no), or it might just be filled with Johnny Winter.

I'm not going home for the comfort of my parents. That's more effective from a distance. I'm going home for my dog sleeping on my bum and for my copy of Zadie Smith's On Beauty and TV that's not two flights down and usually taken by somebody studying anyway. I'm going home for peace that doesn't crystallize into crushing isolation. That'll be soon enough next weekend. Note to self: make more friends before next Friday.

When I told Mike that, he looked surprised and said, "Well, you don't have to be alone, do you?" Um. No...no of course not. He said, "I could hang out with you," which made me want to ask exactly how he passes his weekend nights up here.

Don't make this more difficult. Push through.

*Note: the D60 is on its way to its rightful owner. Its journey will take all weekend, so I'll explain Monday.

Introduction

Hi. My name's Mel, and I broke up with my boyfriend of 2.85 years this past Tuesday.

 

From my dorm's computer lab.

It's been wretched, and I want to write about it, in which "it" = the process of becoming unglued from almost three years of my life and most of my college experience. I want to write about pushing through this mass of depression and uncertainty. I want to write about being on my own. I want to write about why I did it, because frankly, right now I'm not even sure myself.

The actual relationship is still too raw for me to talk about today (personal barometer: I'm still sobbing when I hear Paul Westerberg's "Born for Me"). I hate reading about other people's nonfiction relationships, anyway, because when you're in one it sounds and feels completely unique, but it's not. There's nothing wrong with that; it just bores people who are outside the chosen circle.

I'm writing a day-by-day survivor log. Follow along to make sure I don't drown myself in unsolicited advice, schoolwork, or diet soda/alcoholic hybrids.

Day 1: Tuesday
THE Tuesday. It hurt a fuckton. I didn't have classes because it's Election Day. After getting back to my dorm from my boyfriend's place with a glaze of snot and sweat and sleep slicked over my face and hair, I sit in the computer lab, change my Facebook status, click on my email's refresh button like a rat on a random ratio lever (thanks, Psych 101, for teaching me a more depressingly useful metaphor). When I manage to go across the street to the Student Union for lunch, a lunch lady who always recognizes me and says hi asks me about my man. That's what she says. "How's your man?" I hoist a smile that crumples rapidly as I pay and go cry into the chicken wrap I didn't really want.
I go upstairs to do my fundraiser week show on the college radio station. I get to play blues for two hours straight. I only hear about half of it.
I call my parents. Nervous as hell. I break down as soon as my mom answers. She thinks she has to say all this elaborate stuff to make me feel better but I just want to hear her say she's sorry for me. She does; I ignore most of the other stuff, especially about how this might not be permanent. Yeah, Mom. Maybe we will, I say automatically, fretting string in the hole in my jeans.
Get back to my dorm, keep refreshing BF's Facebook page to see if he's changed his status yet. Field a text from my friend Mike, an email from my distance writing friend Jenna, a couple sad faces on my Facebook relationship status. Refresh. Refresh. Nothing. My eyeballs hurt.
At 9pm, I call BF, choke into his voicemail that I miss him, then call two more times over the next 20 minutes. Feel vaguely proud of myself for being able to stop after that.

Day 2: The First Full Day
Excerpt from email I wrote to Jenna yesterday (Wednesday, November 3)

Today's been just weird. I woke up feeling actually happy. Good sleep + comfy bed + Jane Eyre. Then in the shower I started feeling absolutely wretched, and after morning sociology I cried a little in the women's room. A lady in the stall next to me asked what was wrong and I told her and she gave me advice. While we were still in our seperate stalls. She told me it may seem like the end of the world, but it's not, and "everything except homicide and suicide you can get over." Profundity in unexpected places.
Then when I went to the student union to get lunch, I ran into a guy I know from robotics (the annoying, crazy, loudly competent computer programmer). He acted all paternal (dude's 18...no, 19. Sophomore.) and gave me a hug (I ended up with my head sort of jammed into his armpit and all it smelled like was fabric).
And I need to ask BF the administrative password to one of the dorm lab computers so I can install a slidshow program to get a reporting project done for tomorrow. My laptop crapped out on me over the summer. I also have to give him back his Nikon D60.
I think I'm going to email my professor about an extension so I can beg someone else's laptop sometime before Tuesday.
Tomorrow I'm having dinner with my friend Mike, the guy I've wanted to jump for about 14 months now and have not. I won't tomorrow, at least not for real, but I miss touching already. Not even sex; sex was sort of tangibly related but too often made me worry if I/we was/were doing it right. I just miss being able to lean on someone, or touch an arm with mine, or put my head on a chest or shoulder in a careless familiar way. We watched a video in Psych 101 about baby monkeys clinging to a synthetic furry mom model, and that choked me up because it reminded me of BF's chest hair.

Damn you, Psych 101.
More parental calls--one of each. Bewildered but supportive. Me and my dad are getting so much better at talking to each other.
More Internet browsing and crying until I look like I've been smoking weed all day. I haven't, and never will. Hyperlinks are my drug of choice.

Day 3: Today and So Far
Invited insomnia to snuggle with me about 2am, because it was just standing there staring at me and I figured I might as well make a friend of it.
"Remember, God loves you," in an email from my dad. I'm an atheist. He is not. I appreciate his thought but smell a lecture coming on (it smells like laminated pine).
Went to a pre-scheduled biofeedback appointment at the student mental health center. Learned what I'm calling The Extreminties Boogie to increase circulation and how to breathe from the diaphragm so my heart doesn't feel so much like a jackrabbit's.

That Big Dark Shaggy Beast Called the Future:
I'm meeting Mike for dinner at 7pm. Reckless decisions may or may not be made.


Reading: Jane Eyre by Charolette Bronte
Listening to: Nothing while I'm writing, but I was listening to the AV Club podcast, and I want to listen to the Black Keys.

I still have his camera.

I still have his camera--his Nikon D60, to be exact. The one I borrowed two weeks ago for various reporting class projects (there are always at least two going on at once, because That's The Real World according to my professor) and love like my own child. The one that he never uses anymore, and the one that I had in my dorm room when I broke up with him in his car.

I don't know how to give it back if he doesn't answer Facebook or phone messages from me anymore. Keep trying until my name/voice doesn't stab him in the heart and leave it bleeding on his Mac's keyboard? That shit's aluminum; it'll wipe right off, I swear--I just want to give you back your $500 investment in your art, I swear--I'm harmless, I swear--

No. No, I'm not harmless. I wanted to be so badly. It didn't work.