ungovernable

It was nice while it lasted. Then I sat down to fill out my therapy intake questionnaire and had to detail every bad thing that's happened in my entire life, and by the time I got up to the present I was NOT OKAY. 

The last item on the questionnaire was something like, “What strengths do you bring to the table?” and I wrote about how I’m good at having difficult discussions without losing my temper, saying mean things, or storming out.

Except I did not take into account my decision to stop listening to my brain and my heart, and to just go with my gut this time around. 

The brain:

superego

The heart:

ego

The gut:

id

So instead of having a quiet conversation with “I” statements and reflective listening when he wanted to go to a brewery to talk things through, I yelled at him over a plate of honey bacon Brussels sprouts and told him to go fuck himself.

The diners behind us

After that we had a productive talk. He finally asked some questions he's been wanting to ask for years but knew he wouldn't like the answers to, about my life after we broke up. (And he didn't like the answers. Good.) What I find funny are the questions he has very carefully not been asking since then, via sly text messages. He is definitely not asking if I still have feelings for one specific person who wasn’t even part of the conversation. 

Haha, nice try. Who on earth are you hinting about? I have no idea. 

Ask a direct question and get a direct answer, I’m not picking up bait. What I know is that I have no interest in ever dating again or getting to know some new person who might wreck my life, and the next foot that gets wedged into my door to stop me from closing it is getting smashed into a foot quesadilla. An occasional visit from an old friend who would leave me alone for months in between would be fine, but the bucket of single friends is empty. It’s fine, I can paint and raise the hypothetical grandchildren.

Had some caffeine. Ditched my protein shake and bought a steak. Updated my resume. Found a job I might apply to. Got info on insurance so I can switch plans. Submitted my paintings to the statewide juried art show while still kind of angry and named one of them “fuck around and find out”. Oh no.

I hope I can switch this gut thing off before I steal a boat or something, but it's working for me right now.