Aly
Stumbled across your website the other day, and have spent a couple of days
thinking about what exactly I wanted to say in response. Y’all made me
chuckle, and snort, and nod knowingly. I forwarded your website to all the
Heartless Bitches I know. And decided I wanted to tell you all a story
about anti-romance. Real anti-romance.
Nine months ago, I met a man, a Good Man, as opposed to a Nice Guy. He was
intelligent, wise, authentically open. He was honest. With me, with
himself.
Everyone around me thought I should be experiencing chills of wonder and
delight. The nervousness and uncertainty of what we’re told love is. All I
thought of from the first time I spoke with him was the feel of sun on your
face on a summer day. Open, wide open, with the benevolence of the universe
laid out before me. And he was beautiful. I mean, he was attractive, and
an adventurous and playful lover, but it was when our minds met that I
thought he was beautiful. Of course, wouldn’t you know, after three months
of the kind of joy I didn’t know you could experience, of course, he died.
Drowned doing something he loved, something I would never have stopped him
from doing even though I refused to go myself. (Inner-tubing on white
water, sweet baby jesus.)
Enough of the lauding of that. The main thing is - the whole time I was
with him, I thought, "If this ends tomorrow, I will be okay. No matter how
it ends, I will be me, without him, as I am me now, with him. I will still
have that sense of sun and cool water."
Now, is this too sappy to allow me the true status of Heartless Bitch?
I think not.
Because what I experienced and reveled in for those three months was NOT
romance. Nothing even close. He brought me flowers once, a bunch of
sweet-peas picked from a friend’s farm, but it seemed to be a sharing of
something beautiful, a "I want to give you this," rather than a "I want you
to feel a certain way about me, so I’m giving you this." There was no
hiding behind a façade of lingering gazes. There was no angst or craving,
need or hunger.
Now, I’ve done the dumb-shit thing, I’ve longed for romance and salvation
outside of myself, yes indeed. But having known this, what I had with this
man, I refuse categorically to ever again settle for anything less. I
refuse to look to someone else as my solace, my escape route, my future, my
hope. I refuse to play that role for anyone else. I am neither a healer
nor a hole to be filled.
Never thought Adam was it for me, my last, my only, my one true love. My
other half. I knew I could love other people, and would be able to in the
future. But I chose him, and I will choose my next partner according to the
same standards.
So, I’m a heartless bitch when I don’t concede to the supplications of Nice
Guys trying to "comfort" me. I’m a heartless bitch when I don’t delude
myself into thinking I’m doing anything but hiding by fucking the Himbo in
my ceramics class, and telling him the truth why. I’m a heartless bitch
when I stop fucking him, and tell him the truth why. I’m a heartless bitch
when I don’t date a man I genuinely like because I know that if I do, right
now, it can go nowhere but through the door marked "Pain and Suffering" for
the both of us.
I’m a heartless bitch when I see that imprisoning my memories in an
idealized reliquary is pointless and dumb. I’m a heartless bitch when,
after setting it down to cry, I pick up my life and carry it on with as much
joy and peace as I can muster.
Yes! I want to read more from Real Life Heartless Bitches
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