Usually when I’m on call, it’s from 6am-6pm. Last night I had chosen to work 6pm-6am.   I foolishly thought that at night, my beeper might be nice and quiet.

So I took a shower, put on pajamas, and settled into bed with a new copy of Memoirs of a Geisha (at 11pm). And as luck would have it, five minutes later, my pager went off.

I got home about 3 1/2 hours later, which is a relatively short call. But it took me until 4 am to fully process everything I’d seen and heard in those few hours.

So today I told Sagey we’d go to the beach. Having gotten only 5 hours of sleep, I knew it was going to be a struggle to keep my eyes open this afternoon.. but we went anyway. Right after we got there, I had to use the bathroom. I passed a teenaged boy on my way in. I shook my head, and went into a stall. When I came out of the stall and walked to the sinks, three more men walked in. I turned around, and saw URINALS.

I was so tired, that I had mistakenly gone into THE MEN’S ROOM. Oh, the horror!

Happy Fourth, folks! Mine will surely be spent catching up on sleep.

Yesterday I left my house for the first time all week, to see my psychotherapist. Literally five minutes after I sat down in her office, G had an accident at school. Only I didn’t know it, until after my appointment ended because my cell phone was on silent. As I got into my car I flipped my phone open and saw 5 missed call notes. HOLY crap. My blood pressure rose and I got the cold sweats. I listened to one message then dialed the school.

Apparently this kid is as clutzy as his mother. During gym class he fell, and when he landed, he hit his chin pretty hard.. and when that happened, he BIT HIS TONGUE. I won’t even get into the message the nurse left for me describing it. Suffice it to say I was absolutely panicked with the visual she put into my head. It took 30 minutes to get to the school but it felt like 3 hours.

His tongue is quite the gnarly sight, I tell you. It is so swollen and sore. He can’t talk without wincing in pain, and he can barely eat or drink anything because it stings so bad. There’s absolutely nothing we can do. I’m making him gargle with warm salt water every 45 minutes, in hopes that a couple of days of this will make a big difference.

“He’s Just Not That Into You”

I wish I’d gotten this book ages ago. It’s hilarious, and uplifting.. but also informative. A few excerpts:

Chapter 8 he’s just not that into you if he’s breaking up with you

Everyone wants to be loved and needed, particularly by the person who just broke up with us. I understand. What could be better than hearing from the man who just told you he didn’t want you in his life anymore, his sad, wistful “I miss you so much” voice on the other end of the phone? It’s validating. It’s exciting. It’s irresistible. But resist you must. If he’s not calling you to tell you he hired a U-Haul to come pick up all your stuff and move it back into his house, then consider yourself a nice, downy little pillow cushioning him from his feelings of loneliness and loss that he’s not fully ready to deal with on his own.

Don’t be flattered that he misses you. He should miss you. You’re deeply missable. However, he’s still the same person who just broke up with you. Remember, the only reason he can miss you is because he’s choosing, every day, not to be with you.

On breakup sex:

Don’t underestimate the power of sex, even with someone you’ve been doing it with for a very long time. Especially with someone you’ve been doing it with for a very long time. Breaking up means not seeing them again, which also implies not seeing them naked again. It may be tempting to forget this pearl of wisdom, but just remember, it’s still called breakup sex. No one has yet to rename it the

oh-my-God-the-sex-was-so-good-we-got-back-together-again-and lived-happily-ever-after sex.

On taking him back:

Deciding to get back together with someone is a complicated and difficult decision. Just remember that the person you are getting back together with is the same person who, not long before, looked you in your beautiful face, took full stock of you and all your qualities, and told you that he was no longer in need of your company. If aliens haven’t recently abducted your beloved and switched his brain for the brain of a guy who’s really into you, please consider the option that the bum maybe just got a little lonely.

Breakups, I’ve heard, are supposed to be just that. Breaks. Hard, clean breaks. No talking, no seeing, no touching.. keep your hands to yourself. The relationship is over. Half the people I know move after a huge breakup, and frankly that makes perfect sense to me. Again, for the most part, we kind of know this. You’re not supposed to sleep with the guy who just broke your heart a week ago. Fine. But what are we supposed to do instead? How are we going to fill our time if we’re not trying to win him back (while we keep trying to convince our friends that we’re really not), huh?

——–

Anyway, I LOVE this book. It helped me to quit blubbering into tissues and feeling sorry for myself. It’s helped me to LAUGH again. I needed that.

If you haven’t read this book, you should. It’s for single people, people in casual dating kinda things, and people (like me) who are completely starting over and don’t know what to do next.

If you have read the book - tell me what you thought of it?

It’s finally sunken in that my relationship is completely and totally over. And there won’t be any do-overs.

I’ve gone over it all in my head 800 times. I’ve run the gamut of blaming myself and beating myself up. I’ve fluctuated pretty steadily between being wrung out and sad, to pissed off and wanting to track him down to scream in his face that he’s making a huge mistake.

Then I reflect back to a January morning when we first discussed our relationship spiraling downward. He suggested that we seek counseling. But just as quickly as he suggested it, he backed out. He got a new apartment with two roommates. He continued to stick around, so I thought I had him in my back pocket. I honestly believed that he wasn’t going anywhere, and that we’d fix this down the road.. somehow.

But now he seems to be hitting a midlife crisis. He wants to throw his line out there, and feel a new tug. He wants to reel a few in and see what happens.

His voice echoes in my head..

“If you love me, you’ll let me go.”

That’s got to be the single-most, stupid thing I have ever heard.

If he loved me, he’d have stayed.