Trash

This is something I wrote several years ago now, when I'd broken up with my boyfriend of 3 1/2 years. I'd thought I'd wanted to marry him. At the time I wrote this piece, it was only a few months later, and I'd learned via mass-email that he was now engaged to another woman. And I felt like trash, and some days, I still do.

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I stood there, resolute in my promise to myself as I heard his car pull into the garage. I stood with the dogs out in the yard, happy that we were going to have this conversation in person, sure that it was the last.

He came out of the garage, slowly. My heart was in my throat, already knowing the answer. He wouldn’t even meet my eyes. He, the one who couldn’t even THINK of me, now couldn’t even look me in the eyes.

It was I who broke the uncomfortable silence.

“So am I going or staying?”


Silence.

He was greeting the dogs, still. At least someone was happy to see him. I had once used that same avoidance technique, years ago, avoiding a kiss that I didn’t want. It was a different man, a different dog, a different place. He patted the dog, then looked up at me, still bent over. He couldn’t even say what he had to say while standing.

For the first time, he looked me in the eye, still bent over, distracting himself. I knew before he even said the words.

“I think you’d better go.” He looked away, unable to say more.

I stared, my heart dropping, my game backfiring. The previous night, tired of being undervalued—maybe “non-valued” was the better term—I'd given the ultimatum. He'd been out elsewhere with other people, not caring that I'd been gone for two weeks. So I'd left, packing up everything I'd ever left at his house. All the little things. Leaving no trace of myself, wishing he couldn't even smell my perfume in the air. But I couldn't vacuum the air.

Later, after I'd left, knowing he'd already arrived home, I'd  had to call about necessary medication for one of the dogs, planning on leaving a message. He’d just walked in the door. He didn’t even notice I was gone!

I had to tell him I left. I even had to spell it out.

He hadn’t even noticed I was gone.

So I asked him if he wanted to break up. All the indications were there. He didn’t know. So I told him to think about where I belonged in his life, or if I didn’t belong at all.

Turns out that I didn't.

And immediately after that, he wanted to marry her!

Two weeks after we broke up, after a 3 year relationship, he started dating HER. A very nice person, a bit too much like me—and now he thinks she’s “the one.”

He went out with me for three years, knowing that he would NEVER marry me. He led me on, introduced me to his family—and he took me for granted.

He didn’t want me in his life, in his family. He wants to be my friend, fine.

But he thinks she’s the ONE!!!!

Just twist that dagger, there, ex.

He had said he loved me. He said that I was important to him.

I trusted him. I believed he loved me.

And I was just wallpaper. Just wallpaper, someone to be with, but someone who really doesn’t mean much.

Now I’m just yesterday’s trash, kicked to the curb. Three years, I carried our relationship, while he kept his secret to himself. She’s a buddy in the National Guard, he’s known her for 4 years. Was she the reason that he never introduced me to his Guard buddies? I was never going to be good enough, no matter what. He knew that, but kept the secret to himself, selfish. He just wanted a woman in his life. He sucked up my years, my life, wasting it for his own purposes.

Wasted.

Trash.

Funny how those terms go together. And now they resemble me.

And I can still feel that breeze in my hair, time and sound stopping, hearing the sound of “over.” Knowing how it feels to be trash.
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