how i am, part 2: around one-thousand rather repetitive words

“How are you?” people ask me, and they seem to mean it. Their eyebrows knit together, predictable as the cabling on a J. Crew sweater. Their dropped voices emphasize the “are,” drawing it out like the filling of a sweet. Their eyes lock on mine like tractor beams intent on wresting something from me that I should be willing to give up.

Fine, I say. Really.

And, really, I am fine, if you place how I’m feeling against the grand pantheon of emotion I could feel. Sure, I’m sad and disappointed and angry. But I’m not feeling particularly operatic; there’s nothing over the top in how I’m feeling. Placed against the kind of raw and keening loss and incredible desperation I have felt when I’ve broken up with boyfriends in the past, I’m really, truly fine.

Which is odd for me to contemplate, this relative fineness in the face of this extraordinary loss. For I have just lost a lot. Not merely have I lost a three-year-plus relationship with a man with whom I was very much in love, but also my best friend, and also my ephemeral engagement that should have led to a lasting marriage, and also all that support and love and great sex therein, and those mere bits together make up a great, fat lot of loss. I have, in short, suffered a great loss.

It’s been a difficult three weeks, almost a month, but, hey, who’s counting? I suppose that part of my fineness comes from the fact that I suffered the lion’s gory share of the emotional freaking out right after Donny told me, that Friday night all those weeks ago, that he didn’t think he wanted to marry me. I pretty much suffered through the emo love abyss that is a swirling vortex of confusion and insecurity and rage that following week, which lightened the load considerably now that the deal has been sealed, and sealed irrevocably.

Part of my fineness too comes from the absolute certainty that I regret nothing about our relationship. I don’t regret the way we got together all those years ago, hot and flush with the heat of SlutFest 2004. I don’t regret the nasty-hot sex, and I don’t regret writing about it. I don’t regret the strobe light nature of our relationship in its first year, when we were broken up and back on and off again only to find ourselves on. I don’t regret realizing at some point about two years ago that I really loved Donny and that I was committed to him. I don’t regret telling him my feelings when I first discovered them, and I don’t regret reiterating them later.

I don’t regret letting him know in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t comfortable dating eternally, that I wanted to move in with him, and that moving in meant being engaged and in due course marrying. I don’t regret telling him all of that multiple times, and I don’t regret telling him that I was operating on the assumption that he was in the relationship with me to build a life together, and if he at any moment knew that wasn’t what he wanted, telling him that he needed to let me know. I don’t regret that.

I don’t regret the excitement I felt over the belief that this man  with whom I’d fallen in love and to whom I’d committed myself seemed by all his outward acts to be committing to me too. I don’t regret telling family, friends, acquaintances and,  eventually, strangers. I don’t regret taking our discussion of when and where we wanted to wed as tacit permission to begin to plan the wedding. I don’t regret that, and I don’t regret talking with him about adopting children, and discussing too all the planning that needs to go along with adoption.

I don’t regret the way that I handled myself when Donny’s fear/disinclination/whatever got the better of him and he lashed out at me. I don’t regret asking him to leave my apartment, and I don’t regret the phone conversation we had a couple of days later when I expressed my hurt and dismay to him. I don’t regret the longer conversation we had almost two weeks ago when I laid out to him my feelings and my issues with what he’d said to me, and when I told him, again, that he needed to figure out whether or not he could commit to me, and he needed to tell me.

I don’t regret realizing that it was unimportant whether he couldn’t commit to me or whether he didn’t want to. I don’t regret knowing that, in the end, the why didn’t matter. I don’t regret realizing too that for the past three years, I’ve let this man consistently give me just a little too little, a little too little love, a little too little attention, a little too little sex, a little too little intimacy, a little too little on many, too many fronts. I don’t regret realizing now that I subsisted like hungry child, a little too little grateful for when he could attend to my needs.

I don’t regret loving Donny, not for a moment. And I don’t regret ending our relationship. I don’t regret it, any of it, at all. I loved him completely, and while there is time for me to figure out why I was content staying in a relationship with someone who wasn’t as present as I, now is not yet that time.

Interestingly, as I wrote those last two paragraphs, Edith Piaf’s “No, Je ne Regrette Rien” played randomly in the background. Unlike Piaf’s song, I do not repudiate my past, I do not look at what I’ve done and say, in essence, I regret nothing because it is now all gone, washed away like grime under the scourging power of anti-bacterial will. Rather, I say I regret nothing because it made me who I am today, and I like who I am.

Which is why if you, or anyone else, asks me, “How are you?” I’ll say, Fine.

And I’ll mean it.

Comments

[Xkv8r]

Being comfortable with yourself, and liking yourself is what life is about. I read you daily, and although I don't comment much, I like what you're about. Life goes on, and I'm pleased that you were able to see the handwriting on the wall. There is someone out there for each and every one of us. Don't be in a hurry, and don't force yourself to look for that special someone. When the time is right, you will realize it!

[Sailor]

I'm glad for you, that are strong enough to not have regrets- nor should you, because if the relationship in all it's phases worked for you, then there really isn't a reason to regret.

[six]

To not regret is a wonderful thing in the middle of such not so wonderful things.

.6

[Tim]

I saw you were one of Witchy’s favorite blogs so decided to see it for myself. I like what I read and will read more. It's hard not to regret, especially when we have the loss you describe.

[Jess]

You are one of the strongest women, no, people, I know of. It can be very difficult after a breakup not to regret all of it, the love, the fun, and the happiness, because of all the bad in the end. I commend you for your strength, your maturity, and your wisdom; I thank you for sharing all of this with us.

[tonyzee]

I don't comment much on your postings... hell, the truth of the matter is, I don't comment at all, until now. But I follow along, and I am consistently and ever more deeply moved by what you relate and how you express it. Moved in a way that I am never, ever moved by anything else I read online. You might not regard that as much of an encomium, but... Anyway, sometimes it seems to me that anyone with such facile access into the dark red bliss of things can ever be wanting, and yet it's that very access that creates such demands. Sorry, I don't quite know what I'm saying. I feel a great empathy, borne of a great regard. Just wanted, after all this time, to reach out. All the best. -TZ

[MJ]

You are right. I recall past postings where he didn't seem to give much, or enough, or left too early, or wasn't available - and that is no way to go through life. Maybe if you don't really need or want much and don't mind, but not if you are a person with a fuller heart. The capacity to love and give should be matched, and you have that capacity.

[donna]

are: "drawing it out like the filling of a sweet."

Beautiful, just beautiful. Makes me shudder. Your writing is so great.

[m]

I just wanted to say that I'm with Donna on the shudder. I get goosebumps too. I've never read anything like this before. Your writing is so good on so many levels; it's almost like a new artform.
I like what tonyzee was trying to say about your "access into the dark red bliss" and the demands that creates. I think I understand what he's getting at.

It's interesting, because the writing was always on the wall, I thought so anyway, even when you were being very positive. It's remarkable what comes through when you read someone's writing.
Wishing you the best and looking forward to new changes that might happen with your writing.

[Cyrano Q]

Regret nothing. Regrets are for the other guy. Yay you!

[Kirohn]

Wow! I'm just new to this blog and I love it.

I loved this line ...

Unlike Piaf’s song, I do not repudiate my past, I do not look at what I’ve done and say, in essence, I regret nothing because it is now all gone, washed away like grime under the scourging power of anti-bacterial will. Rather, I say I regret nothing because it made me who I am today, and I like who I am.

Thats some powerful insight Goddess.

Thanks
Ki

[Megan]

I love you're writing, and I just though I'd let you know.

[MJ]

A long term relationship, or marriage, has to be right. Or else what do you get? Someone you don't love anymore, someone you don't respect anymore, someone you don't ever want to touch again, knowledge that at age ___ you are with someone you'd rather be without. The rosy before can turn into the curdled after - if it ain't right, it ain't going to get any better. You don't need the curdled after, none of us do.

[bibliogrrl]

I've only been reading you a couple of months, and your breakup with Donny happened about the same time as my breakup with my Said Dude. It was not nearly anywhere near as long or as deep as your relationship, only about a year; and I knew from the beginning that it was not a 'forever' relationship, but when the end came I was still kind of annoyed. Even though I saw it coming and should have done it myself. But you know, he had been depressed and I felt bad and didn't want to add to it. Ha.

But this part of your post grabbed me by the neck: I don’t regret realizing too that for the past three years, I’ve let this man consistently give me just a little too little, a little too little love, a little too little attention, a little too little sex, a little too little intimacy, a little too little on many, too many fronts. I don’t regret realizing now that I subsisted like hungry child, a little too little grateful for when he could attend to my needs.

Were you spying on me? Why do we let this happen?

I too, don't regret spending a year of my life with a man who swept me off my feet for 2.5 months, and then spent the next 8.5 being rather indifferent. I learned a lot from him. I took a lot from the relationship; a newfound love a bikes, a knowledge that I CAN have a casual relationship, the idea that football is an awesome sport.. etc.

I'm glad you're ok. Thank you for writing better than I ever could.

[Lorenzo]

Hi Chelsea,

A very good friend of mine, one whose opinion I highly respect sent the following message to me this morning, coming out of hiding-seclusion-self imposed reclusion as she was:

"she is single now. i still think you're soul mates."

and included a link to your blog.

she has long praised your writing and has often said that our words and thoughts and subsequent musings are hauntingly akin to one another.

hence, here i am, to try and understand what her often-enthusiastic mummurings have been about.

while i cannot readily conclude anything after merely reading two of your last posts, i will say that i can empathize and wish to share with you two pieces of mine that perhaps might complement the process of healing through your self-examination of past, present and future.

and to be wholly honest, and once again, i have read but two pieces of yours, manwhore and how am i II, i am more intrigued by your reflections on the relationship-that-was, than the more prurient subject matter (albeit, i write just as often about sex as i do otherwise, if only to vent this diurnal yearning: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenzodom/852710761/)

anyway, here are the two pieces:

The End is Not The End
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenzodom/315876035/in/set-72157601036949196/

written two days ago:
In A Dream (Happy 10th Anniversary)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenzodom/1729520627/

anyway, glad to read you are fine. you are obviously a talented writer, one who is being paid for her talent - kudos!

i am (was supposed to) have my first book come out this month (25 Lessons: The Art of Living, http://www.cyanbooks.com/downloads/US.pdf) However, there has been some trouble in London and supposedly, it will still come out, but in Feb. 2008 now...we'll see)

Lorenzo

[alphagirl]

Thank You for your willingness to write so beautifully about your life - for reasons I care not to disclose here this post, out of so many, resonates and is helpful to me in getting on with the craziness of my life.

[Ginger]

I, too, have suffered in the same way, and recently. A week ago? No matter - the end result is the same.

And people often ask me "How are you?" My answer may be cynical, yet states truth.

"Do I have a choice"?