It's Been Awhile

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.

-Harry Crews

This post has been a long time coming. I wrote an extremely long post back in October, but never posted it. If anybody ever wants to read it, they can, but you'll have to ask me about it; I’ve decided not to post it here.

Confession: I creeped on my ex’s Facebook profile last night. I really don’t creep very often at all. Once every few months, I guess; it used to be when I was feeling down, and now it’s mostly when I’m feeling curious. Granted, he’s recently changed his privacy settings, so I legitimately had to creep this time (by signing on as my brother, who’s fb friends with him—hey, you have to have a spy somewhere, it’s a rule of feminism or something), whereas usually I just have to do a quick search for his name. New profile picture, but mostly same old, same old. He’s had a new girlfriend for some time now. It’s interesting: She looks quite similar to me. About the same height, about the same build, hair about the same length and parted in much the same way I used to part mine. Maybe that’s an egotistical observation, but it’s also true, and I’m not the only one who noticed it. My friend Kristen wanted to know what “your ex-jerk” (as opposed to hers—we all seem to have one) looked like, so I found his pics for her (that’s not creeping. That’s being cooperative for a friend. It’s different), and the first thing she said was, “She looks like you. Was he seriously that pathetic?”

I love Kristen. She has a knack for pointing these things out. (She’s also a little bit bitter about boys in general, and likes to say things like “Katherine, hon, don’t you just love to look at them [her ex and my ex] now, and look at us now? We are hot and smart and talented, and they are ugly and probably dating really pathetic people. We just win, that’s all there is to it!” Kristen is a very competitive person. But sometimes I really like her mindset.)

Back to topic. I mean, I’m certainly not saying that he did start dating what’s-her-name because she looked vaguely like me. That would be petty. I will say that he transferred his “undying” affections pretty darn quickly, and I’ll admit that that really ticked me off, and was one of the things that kept me mad for perhaps longer than I should’ve cared. But you know, really, I hope they’re very happy together. They can talk about social status and insult people and toss around racial epithets and generally act like pretentious snobs together. Maybe she likes being treated like a second-class being for being female! I sure didn’t, but, you know, to each her own. (And I refuse to believe that he’d cut out any of the above behavior. As Carrie Underwood put it in one of the best songs ever: Now you only have yourself to blame/For playing all those stupid games/You’re always going to be the same/Oh, no, you’ll never change. Seriously, listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waVCBdMI5Fg. It’s awesome.) I do apologize; that sounded a little hateful. If it wasn’t completely true, I might feel a bit ashamed of myself.

As it is, I haven’t liked Connor for a very, very long time now. It’s been…let’s see…a little over eight months since we broke up, and I stopped liking him somewhere around the two month mark (which was when I unfriended him on Facebook and shortly before he started dating the new girl). I started hating him, instead. And frankly, there was a lot to hate, even if it took me a while to see it. He was mean to me. He always, always put himself first. He flirted with other girls in front of me. He blamed me for things that weren’t my fault. He insulted my family, my college, my friends, things I cared about like dolls and dance and traditions. He was sarcastic, and while that was initially funny, sometimes it really burned. He repeatedly implied that he was smarter than I was, that his family and friends and school and lifestyle were better than mine, that he was somehow dating down. If he wasn’t getting his way, he called me names and told me I didn’t love him; if I was winning an argument, he pouted like a toddler and would throw a minor tantrum. I was less of a good North Carolinian because I thought it was great that restaurants and bars were going smoke-free, and I was somehow less of a southerner than him because I don’t have a noticeable drawl—which yes, was an insult.

Honestly, a lot of that is extremely illogical. Let’s go through some of them. Connor and I tied for the same spot in the top ten of our graduating high school class, both spoke at graduation, both were active in community programs, and both got scholarships. Throughout high school, he only received one department award, for AP Chem. In comparison, I received eight: Honors World History, Speech and Debate, Honors Civics, Honors English 10, Creative Writing II, AP Government, AP Literature, and French IV. He was on academic probation by the end of our freshman year of college, and I had a 4.0. Obviously, then, there’s no basis for him thinking he was smarter. And my family is a well-respected, long-time part of the Outer Banks community, whereas his had only moved there shortly before his birth, and frankly, is more corrosive to others than mine. So who really belongs? Only his father’s family is from North Carolina (and I’m related to that side, to boot), while both sides of my family have been in NC for well over a hundred years—I’ve done the research. So who’s more North Carolinian? His mother’s from Ohio. So, who’s more authentically Southern, really? Whose friends are out drinking tonight, not giving a thought for the future, and whose friends are having plenty of (legal) fun while still making legitimate plans for law school, med school, and grad school? (Hint: My friends are in the second category.) My college completely outranks his in just about every scholarly comparison you can find. His parents divorced while I was dating him, and the housing market crash was hard on them—both of which are horrible things, and I’m not glad they happened—but seriously, how am I in a lower class when my family is better off financially, emotionally, etc.? And lastly, I did love him, and he knew it.

But when you hear those sorts of things a lot, you almost believe them. That’s not a nice feeling. And when you’re constantly being put down, and shut down every time you disagree with your boyfriend…well, that’s not healthy. Yet somehow I managed to cover up for all of that, because he loved me, and, frankly, that was very attractive. That was new. I liked it. And he could be sweet as pie. But it’s like my Mama and my friend Kate both said: “Katherine, ALL boys can be really, really sweet when they want to be.” I’m not saying he played me, because he did care about me. But he was definitely manipulative and unkind. And I really, really didn’t want to see that, no matter how much my parents wanted to point it out to me. He made me mad—furious—but I could justify it. All couples irritate each other sometimes. They say love’s a lot of work, right? Right. I sat in my car and cried after we finally broke up, and I don’t cry much. Then I missed him for quite a while after that. He had sobbed all over the place about how we had to stay in contact, had to stay friends, he loved me so much…blah, blah, blah. And I tried to stay friends. I tried really hard. I had never done this before. He had, but he didn’t try. He called me only to cry on my shoulder about this, that, and the other. I was sympathetic, I was sweet.

Took a while before I realized that I was being used like a Kleenex.

Took a while longer before I realized I always had been, and had just been making excuses for it all along.

Yeah, I was mad. I was spitting, clawing, irrationally angry, because it seemed an awful lot like I’d been hurt and I had suffered, and it was his fault, and he came out unscathed. I was pissed. (Excuse the language, but it's true.) It’s fun to have something to be angry about, to be honest. I like angry music and making angry videos and sharing unflattering gossip about Connor. It renders your life more interesting by default. And it allowed me to get away from the fact that I was also really, really upset with myself for PUTTING UP with the put downs and the condescension and the manipulation for a year and a half, for allowing him to come between me and my family, for allowing him to get me in trouble, for allowing him that much space in my mind. That was my fault. I did that. And I’m still a bit dismayed that I let that happen. I’m smarter than that.

It’s taken until now to get over that. It was not okay. It really wasn’t. It was dumb and naïve. But we were very young. I was just seventeen when we started dating…I’ll be twenty this year, and somehow it feels as though much more than three years has passed. He was stupid. I was positively retarded. We hurt each other. But you know what? That was a long time ago, and it’s time to forgive him for being a jerk and forgive myself for being stubborn, and get over the whole thing.

And so I was happy when it came to this: I creeped on his Facebook, and I honestly didn’t feel upset. I’m not mad. I’m not really bitter. I really just don’t care. And in all honesty, I feel kind of sorry for him. Because I know better than just about anyone what an insecure, unhappy person he is, and I know that that is probably never going to change. Content, confident people don’t have to bring other people down. They don’t have to make you feel small so they can feel big. I doubt Connor will ever be a content, confident person.

But I will be, even if I’m not quite there yet.

Now, I don’t know if he ever thinks about or misses me, and I don’t really care. But I don’t miss him, or even think about him very often. I don’t care if he’s dating another girl. Seriously, whatever. Granted, if somebody brings the subject of Connor up, I think it is very enjoyable to bash him a bit. It’s recreational. But it doesn’t happen very often, and it shouldn’t happen very often. Out of sight, out of mind; it’s been a long time. But I don’t think that I should keep ignoring the fact that, honestly, we did have some good times together. I loved senior year, and it was partly because of Connor. Times change, and people change, and we both did, and that’s just the way it is. We’ll never be friends, and I don’t want to be. But I’m through being upset about the whole thing. It just takes up time and energy that could be used for better purposes. Let’s let the whole thing assume its natural place and patina as a bit of personal history.

I don’t wish him well, but I don’t wish him ill, either.

And next time, I’ll do better. Then maybe it won’t end up with this sort of post. And that would be good.

*By the way, the title of this post is the name of a Staind song; in proper English, it should be "It's Been A While," but that's not the song. I just thought it was appropriate, since a) I haven't posted in forever, and b) it's pretty much the topic of this entry. However, you don't need to listen to it, because you won't like it. And by "you," I mean Mama.