by K. Ryan
For the first time since I’d started it almost 10 years ago, writing on my blog felt like a chore. I felt like a fake, feigning cheeriness and enthusiasm, especially when I made it seem like I used those products in my everyday life, too, when in my actual everyday life, I just pulled my hair up into a top knot and swiped on some mascara before I left for the café.
My appearance was the least of my problems.
As I set my laptop down on the coffee table, Oliver took that as his cue to slink over from his spot on the end of the couch and hop right into my lap. He circled around twice before deciding to crawl up my chest instead and stretched his front paws up to my collarbone, settling right across my chest and nuzzling my chin.
“Hey, buddy,” I murmured into his fur as my fingers scratched the space in between his ears.
One white paw stretched up to tap my chin, flexing his claws just once, and making me wince at the sharp pricks.
“Ow. That hurts...thanks a lot, RB,” I grumbled. “You know, you and I are dangerously skirting Lucille and Buster Bluth co-dependency territory here.”
Meh.
He went right back to purring and purrumbling, so I shifted him down a little and wrapped my arms around his furry body to hug him to me. These days, the only thing that seemed to put me in a good mood was black and grey tiger-striped fur, which sounded about right, all things considered.
I’d been in my new apartment for almost a month and in that time, life had more or less returned to what it’d been pre-Finn. The only real difference, I supposed, was Oliver. I worked. I blogged. I listened to music. I drank too much wine. I binge-watched too much Netflix. That was about it.
What a fulfilling life I led.
At least I hadn’t made the mistake of trying to convince myself that everything was ‘back to normal’ now and that I was actually happy this way. The only person I enjoyed spending time with these days was my cat and yes, I knew exactly how pathetic that sounded. Lucille Bluth, here I come...at least I didn’t get off on being withholding the way she did.
“Just wait,” I informed my cat dryly and gestured to my TV, where Buster Bluth dutifully zipped up his mom’s dress, albeit with some difficulty considering one of his hands was technically a hook. “Pretty soon, that’ll be us. I’ll be the boozy helicopter mother and you’ll be the needy, overgrown child who should’ve moved out years ago. Well, come to think of it...we’re not that far off from that reality, are we? It’s a good thing they don’t let cat moms and their cat sons go to that Motherboy convention, otherwise we’d be first in line, my furry child.”
Oliver’s little white chest bumped in response. Meh. Just as long as you don’t start calling me Buster, we’ll be good.
I really needed to start watching something other than Arrested Development for awhile, but when I did, I switched right over to Parks and Recreation and started where Finn had left off when he’d cat-sat Oliver for me, which had inevitably sent me plummeting down to the depths of despair yet again. It seemed all I wanted to watch on Netflix were the shows that reminded me of Finn.
Today was Christmas Day and all I really had going on was finishing this stupid blog post—I wasn’t going to post it today since people would be too busy doing things like spending time with their families, eating home-cooked meals, and opening presents to read an entry I should’ve posted three weeks ago.
Noah, Cristina, and Maria had come for the day yesterday and while I’d enjoyed going out to dinner and exchanging presents with them, being alone today was fine by me. Noah was worried—that was nothing new—but he knew well enough not to even suggest I come to Hickory today. Making that trek meant spending the day with my mom and I think I’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes than have to spend more than two seconds in the same room as that woman.
Oliver nuzzled my chin again as if to say, Hey, lady. You still feed me, so I still like you.
At least I wasn’t completely alone on Christmas. At least someone liked me.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” I told him. “Love you, buddy.”
He pressed the top of his head into my cheek to say, Yeah, I guess I love you too.
“Well,” I shrugged. “It’s Christmas. Maybe we should do something Christmas-y and I don’t know, watch Elf or something.”
Meh.
“Yeah, well, it’s my favorite, so deal with it.”
The side of Oliver’s face curled up into a tiny snarl. Oh, the stiff upper lip! My eyes squeezed shut as the memory of the last time I’d heard that flashed through my mind. It wasn’t the first time and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last a not-so-distant memory assaulted my mind. Today would probably be the worst day of all, seeing as how it was Christmas Day and all I had to keep me company was my cat, a bottle of wine, music, sappy holiday movies, and leftovers.
By the time Buddy the Elf was picking off gum underneath railings, I was just about done. In Christmases past, I’d giddily looked forward to watching this movie, so much to the point that I rearranged plans specifically so I could watch this movie whenever it was on TV this time of year. Now, the movie’s cheery mood had me snarling at my screen.
“Screw you, Buddy,” I grunted and Oliver tilted his head back to look at me, purrumbling his agreement. “You know what? Spaghetti and maple syrup makes me wanna puke!”
This movie was just too cheerful and joyful for me right now. I didn’t really feel like laughing today, but then again, it was Christmas, so I toggled over to Love Actually before I could stop myself. What followed was nothing short of a descent into wine-induced madness.
I’d downed my second glass of wine when the prime minister did his little ‘jump for my love’ dance through his house and it was around this time that I started tossing popcorn at my TV screen.
“Screw you, Hugh Grant!” I spat. “Your charming little dance doesn’t change the fact that you were an asshole in Bridget Jones’ Diary!”
Feeling proud of my outburst, I rewarded myself with a third glass of wine and I sank back down into my couch, ready to continue my Christmas insult-fest towards a movie I used to really enjoy watching this time of year. Now, that kid who looked like a baby-faced version of a young Dwight Schrute was watching Titanic, mimicking that famous bow scene like pretending to fly on a doomed cruise liner from 1912 would somehow give him the courage to win over the girl he loved.
Fuck that.
“Screw you, Leo!” I cried as I chucked another handful of popcorn at my TV. “Do you just go to those stupid Victoria’s Secret runway shows and go, I want that one and that one and that one!? You probably wouldn’t even date Kate Winslet in real life even though she’s probably perfect for you...stupid jerk. All you do is date models! You don’t know a good thing when you see it.”
I sucked in a harsh breath as my words caught up with me. The impact hit me harder than I was willing to admit, surging through like a freight train and seeping through my alcohol haze to knock me sideways. Luckily, that dude from The Walking Dead was creeping on his best friend’s wife already and holding up those ridiculous signs…
Just because it’s Christmas
(And at Christmas you tell the truth)
To me, you are perfect
I officially hated this movie.
“Screw you, dude from The Walking Dead!” more popcorn flung at the screen, “and you too, Keira Knightley! That dude and the dude from 12 Years a Slave love you and you look just like Natalie Portman? Spread the wealth, huh? What’s wrong with you?”
To congratulate myself on that eloquent barb towards an actress playing a fictional character, who was probably very nice in real life, I poured myself my fourth glass of wine.
“Good thing I sprung for the value size,” I muttered under my breath.
Yep. I was pathetically alone and sloppy drunk on Christmas.
Whatever.
As if he could read my thoughts, Oliver jumped back onto my lap and maawhr-ed right in my face. Excuse me, he was trying to say, and what the hel
l am I? Canned tuna?
“You’re right,” I nodded, my head jerking up and down drowsily. “I’m not alone. I’ve got you. My little buddy...but not that elf though. I used to like that movie, but Will Ferrell annoyed the shit out of me today.”
My breath hitched at the words: used to.
So many things I used to do. So many things I used to feel.
I squeezed my eyes shut just as Emma Thompson locked herself in her bedroom after she realized that ugly necklace wasn’t really for her...which, in reality, her husband did her a favor because who would really want that fake gold piece of crap anyway? I guess I shouldn’t say that, seeing as how Professor Snape in nerd glasses probably cheated on her. Okay, he most definitely cheated on her with that slutty secretary of his.
Once again, my breath hitched in my throat. Slutty. Why had I used that word? I hated that word. I might as well have called her the c-word.
Around the time the strains of that hauntingly depressing Joni Mitchell song filled my living room, the alcohol-haze really started to catch up with me. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take, so I hit pause on my remote to rid myself of barely-intertwining stories and unrealistic circumstances. I mean, come on. All the characters in that movie were loosely-connected at best and I still didn’t really understand how Laura Linney’s character was related to any of the others. Was she someone’s co-worker? Sister?
Ah. It didn’t matter. It was just a stupid holiday movie that had no emotional resonance with me whatsoever.
Nada. Zero. Zip.
I sighed into my wine glass and took another gulp of that cold, sweet grape-flavored alcohol. Maybe more wine would make my disillusionment easier to swallow. Then again, maybe not. I didn’t want to watch Emma Thompson stare catatonically around her bedroom after finding out her husband cheated on her, whether it was emotional or physical, but I still couldn’t tear my eyes away when I hit play again. My body sat rooted to my couch, my eyes fixed intently on my screen as Emma gazed sadly at all the family pictures on her vanity, wringing her hands and playing anxiously with her bracelet.
And as Emma Thompson wiped her eyes and pulled herself together before going back out to her family, my eyes watered and my face burned. All I could think about was how brave she was. She walked into that bedroom a victim of her husband, of circumstance, of life and somehow, in those three short minutes, she managed to grieve the life she’d known and lost so suddenly and find the strength to carry on. It was Christmas, after all, and she had a family who was counting on her.
Maybe she wouldn’t call out her douchebag husband right then because it wasn’t the time or the place, but you knew she’d do it eventually. You knew she wouldn’t take that shit lying down and allow her spineless husband to walk all over her. She was stronger than that.
She walked into that room a victim and left it a survivor.
I wished I could do that.
I wished I knew how to do that.
One more gulp of wine later and I’d paused the movie again so I could focus on my computer screen instead. I chewed on my bottom lip in thought as I perused my library.
“Hmm,” I murmured. “Joni, Joni, Joni...where are you? I know you’re here somewhere.”
I was positive my dad had had at least one of her records, but I was also too lazy to peel my ass of my couch to look for it. This was way easier.
“Aha!” I cried out, startling the cat in my lap and I clicked on the first Joni Mitchell song I could find, which just happened to be “River”.
When Joni’s voice, hoarse and exhausted with heartache, sung out through my speakers, I was too drunk to stop my eyes from rolling up to my ceiling.
“It’s coming on Christmas/They’re cutting down trees...”
“Ugh,” I mumbled. “Screw you, Christmas.”
But as I sat there, rigid on my couch and clutching my sweaty wine glass for dear life, the rest of the song washed over me...was someone messing with me? What were the odds that this song, on this day would be the one I chose to listen to? Alcohol-haze and lowered inhibitions had pretty much set me up to fail today and now, I felt the brunt of that failure. As Joni crooned with longing and regret about wishing she had a river she could skate away on, my emotions swept away with the lyrics and that sweetly melancholy piano accompaniment.
When the lyrics shifted to talking about her ex-lover, how he tried to help her, put her at ease, and loved her naughty, that was it...the waterworks started and now that they were turned on, I probably had no hope of turning them off tonight, too. Fresh, mournful tears leaked out of my eyes and slipped down my cheeks.
I curled my legs underneath me and took another long gulp of wine. It didn’t make me feel better.
A loud sob hiccuped from my lips as I listened to Joni sing about being hard to handle, selfish, and sad, and how she’d lost the best baby she ever had and I covered my mouth with my free hand, squeezing my eyes shut tight at the lyrics. I hated those lyrics. Hated the honesty and the truth and the way it all sliced right through me. That was exactly what I’d done...next to the cat still perched on my lap, Finn was the best thing that had ever happened to me. To say I’d been hard to handle was probably the understatement of the century. He’d been nothing but supportive, understanding, patient, and loving, and all I’d done was skate away.
I’d been so unfair to him. Unfair and pointlessly cruel all because...why?
Why did I do it in the first place? Why had I put both of us through that when he clearly wanted to be with me, when he clearly didn’t care where I’d been or what had happened to me, when he’d been willing to throw caution aside to protect me and defend me, almost to a fault? All he was guilty of was loving me and I’d punished both of us for no good reason.
What the hell was my problem?
Finn was everything I’d never even known I’d wanted before I met him and I’d tossed it all down the toilet because...why?
With a frustrated huff, I stopped Joni from singing to me—there was just too much truth there for me to handle right now—and hit shuffle on my library instead. Just as I was contemplating the pros and cons of getting a fifth glass of wine, the words of the next song slammed into me, running me right over, and left skid marks down my face.
“It must have been love/But it’s over now...”
Screw this song. Screw it and it’s heart-achingly truthful lyrics. Screw it all the way ‘til Sunday.
I hated it, but I listened anyway, wallowing in wine and tears and all the ways I’d willingly destroyed the one good thing I ever really had.
As far as pity parties went, I had to say this one was pretty epic. And pathetic. And depressing. Pretty soon, I’d be wailing on my couch to “All By Myself” in typical, lonely girl fashion. God, I was an idiot. So, so completely stupid. And stubborn. And selfish. And sad.
Finn was willing to give me everything and I ran away instead.
I’d loved him. I still loved him, but instead of facing what that meant, I ran away instead. Why did I do it? Why did I push? Why did I run? The words were right on the tip of my tongue, but they just wouldn’t come.
Then my thoughts caught up to me. I loved Finn. I think I’d loved him the moment he brought Oliver back to my old patio; it’d just taken months of denial, miles of distance, and too many glasses of wine to get me to realize it.
Something so obvious shouldn’t have taken me this long to figure out. The problem was that I’d put a barrier up and even though I’d let Finn into my apartment, my bed, and my life, I’d still held him at arm’s length. I still hadn’t really let him in. I’d had every opportunity and I just couldn’t do it.
I was drunk and alone on Christmas and I didn’t really have to be.
Self-inflicted emotional harm was a bitch and I knew that first-hand. All the heartache, regret, and longing I felt now...I’d done that to myself. There was no point in denying it anymore.
I was almost 27-years-old with next to nothing to show for it. I had a cat, who I loved
, a one-bedroom apartment, which was tolerable, a blog where thousands of faceless women flocked everyday to get recommendations on products, a brother and sister-in-law who tolerated my drama because they loved me, a mother who wouldn’t speak to me, a ruined teaching career, a useless degree in broad field social sciences, and a dead-end job waitressing at a café.
Not exactly Disney material.
Screw Disney. Wasn’t he a racist or something like that anyway? Probably a misogynist, too.
Ugh.
This was bullshit. Complete bullshit. I was so sick of all this bullshit. And I was crying now. I’d shoved my computer aside, buried my face into a pillow, and sobbed until my entire body convulsed and finally relented. At some point, Oliver crawled back into my lap and I curled my arms around his furry body, finally letting it all pour out of me, and taking comfort in the only good, real thing I had left in my life—my cat.
His head nuzzled my neck, flexing his paws against my collarbone, and he stayed right where he was, purring away and flicking his tail on my waist, letting me purge through everything I’d held inside for too long. Everything twisted and coiled, expelling from me like my body physically rejected the notion of spending one more day cemented in place and spinning my tires.
I was so sick of this. I hated feeling this way. I hated that the only defense mechanism I had was just to shut out the people who loved me. They didn’t deserve that and neither did I.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself...punishing yourself this way. You don’t deserve it and I don’t know what it’s gonna take for you to understand that.”
I squeezed my eyes as his voice flooded my mind. All he’d wanted to do was protect me, love me, and help me.
Then, Finn’s voice grew angrier, darker as he yelled at me, “You’re the one with the problem. You being passive like this, Emma? You just letting people fucking walk all over you? That’s the problem. Not me.”
