Away. Away away away away.
2016.
Cranes in the Sky = my entire 2016 existence wrapped up in a pretty bow. I’ve spent most of my time this year stressed out or zoned out. There were some good times but mainly weird times. This year I learned the hard way that when I try to have my cake and eat it too I end up with the shits. This year I finally learned how to walk away before crashing. This year people and life taught me more about myself than ever before. This year I had my share of regrets.
I got a call the Friday evening before the long July 4th weekend. It was Bearded Ghanaian who I hadn’t spoken to in months telling me he was boarding a plane, would be landing here the next day, and was going to be staying with me for a few days. I told him he could’ve at least given me a few days notice (I was eager for some time to finally relax, braid my hair, catch up on reading, and hang out with my family). His response in classic BG form: “Man, fuck notice.”
He showed up the next “night” around 2 a.m. I’d simultaneously braided my hair and deep cleaned my apartment thinking he’d be there early, but apparently as soon as he was in town he’d hit up the bars with his friends. Understandable seeing as he’d been away for 7 months but still. I was aggravated that he’d sprung up on me randomly, expecting me to suddenly incorporate him into my carefully planned out weekend, and then had the nerve to be on his own schedule. I opened the door ready to tell him about himself and he was standing in the dark on my steps with his “I know you’re pissed” smile. But I held my tongue, beckoned him into my dark apartment. I could tell he was braced for my wrath but I resisted the urge. Instead I stood on my tippy toes and pulled him down to me. He’d lost weight, was in great shape, seemed taller, shaved his beard, rocked a crew cut under his army hat. My snuggly, bearded, mellow friend was now a handsome soldier. I remember hugging him for a long time in the doorway. I remember taking his bags and telling him to come to bed.
A couple days turned into a week, and he made me fucking crazy pretty much every single one of those days. He was going out drinking with his friends into the wee hours of the morning which is perfectly fine, but then waking me up to let him into the house and crawling on top of me before passing out. There was the time when he woke me up at 3 in the morning asking me to come outside in the rain. I told him I was in my nightgown with my hair wrapped and why the hell would I go outside like that. He told me his friend was out there. Say what? What’s that got to do with me? His friend who was supposed to be driving was so drunk he was passed out and BG wanted me to come drop him off because he was too fucked up etc. My anger was out of this world that night; I went OFF asking why he’d let him get so fucked up, why he’d bring him to my home, why at that time of the morning knowing I had to work the next day did he have me out in the streets looking like Mother Goose in my headscarf and nightgown, did he realize it was fucking raining, did I already mention I was in my nightgown. Dumb shit like that always pissed me off about him, 32 acting like a 21 years old.
When it was finally the day for him to leave, he called me that morning a few hours before his flight to ask me if I could drive him to the airport. How the hell was he here EXTRA days and didn’t plan out a ride in all those extra 120 hours? Again I refrained from cursing him out and drove him to the airport. Then when we get there we find out that he accidentally booked the flight for like, 3 months later. They wanted him to cough up an extra $300 or so to get on the plane. Did I mention that he had to be back on base before midnight that day? Did I already mention that he made me fucking crazy? He had booked a last minute flight for late in the afternoon on the completely wrong day in the wrong month knowing he HAD to be back by a specific time and dude had me in the streets in my nightgown looking like Mama from the Berenstain Bears and—
WOOSAAAAH!
…
I realized the day after he left that my period was late. And the days just kept passing without nary a symptom of it coming. For shits and giggles I went through my calendar and counted all the days of my cycle for the whole year. Turns out that unlike me, my period is never on CP time. In fact it’s precision is impeccable. So that’s when I started panicking. On day 5 I took a pregnancy test and there were 2 faint blue lines. I almost shit myself. I called my sister crying, called BG swearing, ran to the clinic for a blood test and started considering my options. I didn’t want to have a baby this way. I didn’t want to be dating someone, knocked up by someone else accidentally, and resentful. I didn’t want to raise a child on my own with a man who was about to head over to Europe for God only knows how long. I couldn’t afford a kid, I had no space in my life for a kid, I had zero clue how I would deal with it. What would I tell my family? What would I tell Idris? What would I tell my confused co-workers?
But at the same time…I couldn’t get rid of my baby. As much as an advocate and supporter I am for a woman’s freedom and right to choose, I knew I personally would never be able to live with myself and the guilt I’d feel terminating a pregnancy. I was angry with myself for being careless and getting myself into this situation. I was angry at BG for being careless and getting me into this situation (shit, MY LIFE would change, not HIS). I was angry at Plan B for not working. See, what had happened was. I remember it so clearly. I remember us in the middle of my bed in the middle of the day, windows open, warm summer breeze. I remember my legs wrapped around him. I remember his hands on my hips. I remember putting on my makeup in the bathroom asking him where he wanted to go to eat. I remember us talking and blah blah blah “I probably got you pregnant…” I remember asking him 1 million times if he was serious/if he was joking/if he came in me and he said yes every time and the last time he asked me how many times was I going to ask him. I remember wanting to kill him. I remember crying. I remember whipping into the CVS parking lot for Plan B. I remember him saying that he’d go in there to get it and I remember saying “of course you fucking will, I’m not going to buy Plan B where I do my fucking couponing. They know me in there.” I remember spending the rest of the day wanting to kick him with both of my feet at the same time like a kangaroo. I was sad for the future of my life. I was sad for fucking up a potentially good thing with Idris. I was mostly sad for my innocent child who was conceived in foolishness and deserved better than that. I prayed I wouldn’t be resentful. I prayed and I cried.
I remember sitting in my car before work on the 6th day. I was calling the clinic for the results of my blood pregnancy test and had the phone in one hand and the number for Planned Parenthood in the other. When the woman apologetically informed me that I was NOT PREGNANT…I cried tears of joy. Minutes later my period started. God had saved me from a complete and utter disaster, the fuck up of all fuck ups. When I called BG to let him know he sounded disappointed. He wanted a kid. He asked me how I felt and I told him I was ecstatic. I told him I’d never felt more alone, and could he imagine being in my shoes? He was all the way in Montana and I was here all by myself having to deal with this on my own. My sister was supportive and told me she would come to Planned Parenthood if that was my decision, but the fact that she was my only support only made me sadder. I didn’t want to make a decision like that by myself. He wasn’t there to talk to, he wasn’t there to take me to appointments, he wasn’t there to help me raise a kid, he wasn’t even my boyfriend or partner at that point. He told me he would’ve taken leave and came to be with me, but that’s not the same. It wasn’t what I ever wanted. He told me if I had been pregnant he would’ve just taken the baby and I overseas with him. That wasn’t what I wanted.
After the pregnancy scare we slowly went our separate ways, which only proved to me that if I had been pregnant the baby would have been the only thing that held us together and I would’ve been flying solo. Still, at the end of the day I feel like he was The One. I know his visit was bad timing and I was extra emotional and over-reacting because of my hormones and I wish I could redo it all. I’ll always feel bad about how things went down. The way we met, the chemistry we had, how simple it all was seemed too good to be true. It was like the Universe wanted to make something easy for me for once and I managed to screw it up. I never gave him a fair shot. Somehow he always ended up playing second fiddle to dudes who were wasting my time. When we first started dating I was a also dating Sleeves, who turned out to be the biggest snake punk bitch pussy, yet at the time I was wrapped up in how fun it was to be with him. My attention and affection were showered upon the wrong one. I had a second chance to make things up with him in the summer when he came back from training, but I was seeing Idris. Bearded Ghananian’s sudden resurfacing in my life annoyed me even though I’d pretty much begged him for forgiveness and told him things would be different. But at the same time I wasn’t expecting to have moved on. So again, I treated him like shit, and that’s likely the last chance he will ever give me to do that. I understand.
Idris is tall, dark, handsome. I’ve always said I could never be with anyone like me and he was my complete opposite. What he saw in me I’ll never understand, but I remember the first time I saw him and how ridiculously good-looking he was. I remember the first time he asked me out. I remember the first time he called me. I remember the first time he kissed me. We spent the summer playing literally: playing basketball (yes he had ME shooting hoops, I wanted him to teach me how to perfect a crossover without hitting myself in the pussy), long walks on the beach, working out. He made work fun. He made life fun. But I always knew in the back of my mind that he wasn’t the one for me. He has kids. He has babymamas. He wants to drive a pickup. He didn’t know who to vote for (need I say more?) I realized that in dating a man with kids I would never ever EVER in life be his priority. He never said it but I knew he didn’t want any more children. Marriage yes, but children? Nah.
I got sick of bearing witness to all the pussy that’s thrown at him on a daily basis. Sick of being jealous and feeling some kind of way, sick of the women throwing themselves at him and questioning and being suspicious of his interest in me. By December as the year was coming to a close, I decided it was time for that relationship to come to a close. It took him by surprise but I don’t know why. I told him I wasn’t a priority to him. I pointed out how we were heading in completely opposite directions in life and I needed to jump off this track before I hit the inevitable brick wall. I told him he had no plans for me and never did. I told him I wasn’t spending another second attached or ounce of affection or flicker or warmth on a person with no plans for me. He would always bring up how when we first met, who would’ve thought we would come so far. And looking back over the 16 or so months that we’ve been talking, I see the cycle of nothingness continuing and I want nothing to do with it. He apologized for his shortcomings, told me he understood but hoped things wouldn’t change. I asked him why the fuck wouldn’t things change? I feel differently towards you so I will act differently towards you. Things are not the same. And I know he was hurt and blindsided but I’ve never claimed finesse in my delivery. I will admit I was angry at him. He led me on. I distinctly recall asking him if I should wait for him or move on. He told me to wait. So I waited, and in the end he was just wasting my time. I held out hope that we would work out when he had no intention. Say what the fuck you mean and mean what the fuck you say, especially when it affects me. I’m a grown ass woman and I have the right to want to settle down and a partner who wants the same things. I’m a good woman. I’m smart. I’m interesting. I’m cute. I have a good personality most of the time. I can be funny. And there’s nobody in the world like me. I deserve better than what he was giving me. He knows this.
…after we broke up I realized that my period was late. Eventually it was very late. No, this is not an editing mistake and you’re not seeing things, I nearly FUCKED UP MY LIFE TWICE IN THE SAME MANNER IN THE SAME YEAR. The same panic, the same sleeplessness, the same stress, the same ugly cry, the same prayers and promises. I got my period 7 days late. When I told him about it he got all sentimental on me, but we were both breathing a huge sigh of relief. 2016 almost ended in a bang! The universe wanted me to have one more mental breakdown.
In other news: I’ve become more and more militant. There’s no way I could’ve ever been with Sleeve’s stupid ass, especially as my beliefs go completely against everything that he is (also because he is a punk ass bitch pussy, don’t forget that). I’ve gotten fatter. I’ve read 150 books. I FINALLY obtained a degree: my associates. And I’m continuing my education till I get what I want. I realize now how important education is to me and why I’m doing what I’m doing, so it makes it less painful and gives me strength. I love my job but hate dealing with the general public and I 100% hate my boss.
My goals for 2017:
Get this mf’ing Bachelor’s degree.
Lose 50 pounds. For my health, not for vanity.
Meat-free in ’17.
And the theme for the new year, sang like Solange: I’M GOING ALL THE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
A Year In Our Lives 