Month: October 2003

disclaimer:
Alright, I just got home. Those pics of me and him were taken within the last couple of hours and I look like hell. But I do want to say this again: I had NO INTENTION of finding him to hook up again. While I agree that it looks and smells like a duck, it’s not a duck. While familiarity may breed ground, it’s been 10 YEARS! I’m not that desperate or lonely to look up an ex just because I’m single. Let’s say that other revelations that came out today were also not planned. Just because it smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, it may not necessarily be a duck.
Just, please, don’t judge. Just support me no matter what, okay?
———-
Within the last couple of days, I came to realization of a few things.
I thought to myself, I’m nearly 32 years old. I’m single. I have a string of relationships that have failed behind and while there is some that would have failed, why wasn’t I married yet? Why was I overly picky about the guys I dated and then it dawned on me. Really, it was quite clear.
It was because of Miguel.
Everything just suddenly made fucking SENSE!
Same thing with why I made my name on the internet. It was not that I did not necessarily care per se BUT that I wanted him to find me.
I waited for 10 fucking years.
Jesus. Yah, I got on with life, dated etc but that part inside of me was always waiting for him to show up at my door (and he’s the type to do it).
I’m a sentimental old romantic aren’t I?
I promised myself that no matter what, I was not going to spill this out to him today. It just wasn’t my place to say it. It wasn’t. So I tried not to say it.
But i told him all of this, all of this and more.
———-
He was good on the tattoos. Didn’t say a peep. Dawned on me earlier this afternoon that he hadn’t said a damned word. I asked. “I got over it.” He said. Woah. I was impressed. He means what he says and he says what he means. This was a new one for me. I looked at him with new eyes.
It was never really about the damn tattoos. It was about me being back in his life again, like gangbusters.
———-
I don’t know how it all began, and in a way I do. I know we were coming back from Chicago and were in MI and we were talking about US again. That whole concept of us. The GF had called a few times during the day, and i had curled up in my seat reading my book, not saying a peep. They didn’t sound like bf/gf, to me. We talked more about them and I said:
“look, i’m saying this objectively and it may not come out that way because of my interest in it, I admire that you want to make your relationship with Sarah work BUT there comes a time and a place where you have to make yourself happy. I did that with paul. I worked my ass off because I did not WANT to fail at that relationship and after a while, I lost who I was. I was living through him to make it work and while he did change, it wasn’t working out that way. It never does.”
He said “I never thought about that way.”
Later on, he kept saying “I need to feel you out. I need to know who you are.”
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too, you know.”
“Oh, well what do you mean by that?”
“Look, you can’t keep seeing me in GR, even as ‘friends’ and then if it doesn’t work out, you can’t go ‘oh well! I have Sarah in MO.”
“DAMN GIRL! You are devious! I never thought of that. Damn.” He said quietly, “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“You already have.”
———-
Then I started crying.
———-
A torrent opened within him out came the things that I never expected to hear ever in my lifetime.
I was his “little fabrage egg” (exact words) when he was with me. I was not in his world, I was pristine and proper and had no idea to what was going on. He kept me at a distance when we were together because he didn’t want me involved in that world. My house and my arms were his safe haven. He wanted to protect me and at the same time, so much shit was going down that he needed to get his life together and keep emotional attachments at bay. He could be himself with me. The relationships that followed were all disposable, even the 7 year long one. There was no real committment. While he had not said it in so many words, I gathered he had been in love with me all these years.
“Don’t you see,” I said, “What this means?”
“Hrm?”
I explained about the relationships. I explained what they meant to me. Yes, I loved them, but it wasn’t the same. I was not in love with them, and probably never was.
“I’ve been in love with you for 15 years!!”
Yes Lisa, you don’t beat around the bush do you.
“Do you see now why I can’t be ‘just friends’ with you?”
“Yes, now it all makes sense why you were so cagey about it.”
Silence followed.
I sniffled.
“I wish I could put you and Sarah together so that you two would be the perfect girl. No one would get hurt. I just don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“You already have.”
More tears followed.
I said something like this.
“I’ve been in love with you for 15 years. I knew about what was going on then and it doesn’t matter. I just wanted to be with YOU, to be loved by you. To be yours. Don’t you get it? I got tired of waiting for your ass. I had to find you.”
I said a lot more, but it’s all hazy now.
“I don’t deseve you or your love. It’s like going downstairs at Christmas morning, expecting one present and finding five. I’m a loser. Yah, I’ve cleaned up, I’m legit. I do my own thing. But everyone around me, is a facade. I’m the fat funny guy everyone likes. I can pick up and leave at a moments notice. Sarah? She’s disposable. They DONT KNOW ME like you know me. You are the only one who has known me before and after and when I’m with you, I feel I want to be a better man. I feel like I need to earn and make you worthy, for I am not. You need someone worthy of your love and I’m pond scum. I deal with pond scum. I have never had anyone tell me anything like this ever in my life. I don’t feel like I need to put up a facade. I can be myself around you. It’s not that it’s uncomfortable, because you and I have always been homies, it’s that it’s weird. In my head, it’s still 1989. Do you understand? You need to date a geek.”
“I”m almost 32 years old, do you NOT understand I know what I want and don’t want? That I’ve dated enough men to know who is worthy of me and who is not. I love you. Do you think I PLANNED on falling in love with a long-haired harely riding trucker?”
“I can’t believe I Just told you that. I have NEVER told anyone that before and I can’t believe I just voiced all of that to you, even though that is what I have always thought.”
I said nothing.
He held my hand while he drove.
———-
There was so much more that was said, so much more that I wish I could have written down and have it, but never did. Things were clicking in my head faster than I could count. The world seemed clearer and more concise. I told him, that if it didn’t work out between us, I was really okay with that. I tried. I was HIS white knight, came to save him, instead of being the white knight to everyone else. He replied that was true. He wants to be worthy of me and lead a better life. He was closing doors down to get rid of any last residual. He’s afraid of commitment, true committment because he knows that with everyone else, they are disposable. He loves them and he wants them safe and cared for, but he knows now I demand all of him. Something, that really, neither one of us really have done before.
He’s scared shitless and so am I.
———-
I had told him, a few days ago, that after I had ridden with him on Tuesday, I came out of the shower and smelt him in my apartment. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on and in this particular place in my apartment, his cologne still lingered EVEN THOUGH he did not wear any when he came over on Saturday night.
When we got back to his house, I ran upstairs and had to use his bathroom. His bottle of cologne was in the bathroom and I just picked up the bottle and smelled, smiling.
———-
I’ve created a monster.
he’s a closet geek. He’s hip to the lingo man. He told everyone that would care to listen how smart and talented I was and even before all these declarations of uh, love, I was invited to go to a party with him for his birthday which is coming up. Yah, he’s OLDER than me — go figure.He told everyone what I was doing with the camera and together we took over 200 pictures of today which I will put up later. He is anxious to learn more and know more about gadgets and is better educated than most people. HE LOVES TECHNOLOGY. I told him how I met paul and he thought that was cool and he wasn’t condescending about me shagging up with Paul via the Internet. I told him everything from what happened when I left MI in 1997 to the present. I told him about the world I had seen and what I had done and he did not question or make me feel like I made mistakes.
When we got to his house, he was expecting some parts for his Audi and UPS had left a note. This ended up with me looking at his computer again. I had sat next to him all day calling him “Captain” as we drove around and he sat next to me at the computer as I went to work calling me “Captain.”
“Don’t stop believing” by Journey came on digital radio and I said “Dance with me” — he said where? HERE? Yah I said, and I kicked my boots off. We swayed old school to the song and he said “lisa, this is not a slow song” “Shut the fuck up and dance with me!” I laughed. So we danced with my arms around his neck in his dining room to the song.
He pulled away.
I pulled back.
“Dance with me.”
1am in the morning and we are swaying old school, giggling, to Journey in his dining room.
He ran around the house taking pictures of things. I laughed at him as he ran around taking pictures of pictures. He dug up old OLD pics of him as a kid and when I first met him and my god, has time flown. I told him how I had shown his picture to an old friend of ours and how she had been ragging on me that I was going to be a biker bitch now. “You’ll never be a biker bitch, Lisa. I don’t WANT you to be.” We laughed.
———-
He asked me to stay the night, again. I demurely declined.
He’s taking his Audi in tomorrow to get worked on and asked me to follow him so that he could get back home. He hadn’t driven it in a week and he went out and started our cars and we stood awkwardly in his living room. We hugged. He pulled away — GODDAMNIT! (he said) You still smell the same!
As I was dropping him off, I turned off the lights and we sat in my warm car, our ass cheeks warmed from the seat heaters. He started babbling. “YOu don’t want to leave do you?” “I’m babbling aren’t I?” He smiled. He hugged me and it was a quirky little hug, “See you around? You got school and stuff. Work starting back up on monday.” “I get out at 4pm M,T,TH,F. I’m off on Wednesdays.” “Oh yah?” “Yah.”
“So, would you like to go see a movie with me?”
“Mmm… sure.”
———-
Friday (tomorrow? today?) I’m heading to my mom’s for the weekend. He’s heading to MO, preplanned, to hang out with Sarah. He told me the last few days that he doesn’t want to have sex with her. I told him he doesn’t have to do that, it’s HIS girlfriend. “I just no longer find her desirable.” “But you don’t HAVE to do that. I do understand.”
———-
I was his tumbleweed. He never expected me in a million years to show back up in his life and here I was, spent two days with him in his ‘tractor’ (not cab, i was wrong) spending 16 hour stretches with him and talking. So much was FUCKING SAID. So much that we never said in the past, so much that needed to be said NOW. We are adults now and it’s fresh, it’s new. It was something but there was all this energy going on then and now it’s clear sailing.
“I don’t want to disappoint you.”
“You’ll only disappoint me if you don’t try.”
I told him I still had the tshirt he gave me when we first met, from his parent’s pizza place 15 years ago. The business is gone and his parents split up. I came home wondering where the damn shirt was, thinking it was in one of the million of boxes in my bedroom. It was piled, with the other shirts. I dug it out and it’s sitting in front me. It’s yellowing, with age. I hold it close to me and smile.
———-
We never kissed beyond Sunday night. We never had sex. As the guards came down and we became more in tune with each other, it was like our own little private club. Same as in the past. We were, ourselves with each other. No facades. No disposable lovers. No nothing. I can’t look at him without wanting to crawl into his skin. I would spend hours staring at him as he drove and he would look at me, wiggle his eyebrows and we would laugh. Every guy I had dated past him, all had parts of him. I never FUCKING knew that, until today. Everything I wanted in someone, was based off of him. How fucked is that? I told him that.
———-
I do feel stronger. I feel — more complete. More within myself. I know who I am now and I know what my future looks and if he can’t take the balls and dump the zero, than, well, I will live without him. It is his loss. I will be hurt, I will curse and I will scream and shake an angry fist at the sky but I will go on.
But, I love him.
I do.
I felt it in my heart and I felt things in the last few days I have not felt in a very long time.
I love him.
Get ready for the ride of a lifetime.

Just got off the phone with Miguel and I’m going out tomorrow with him again on the road. He saw the pictures online and was super impressed because he didn’t know anyone personally who was into that. I told him so many people were impressed with what we did and his job that he was excited. He wants to get more pictures of his cab and he’s going to give me all the correct terminology so I can update the captions correctly.
I’ll see you guys later.

Btw, I pulled all my personal ads.
I got bored.
Regardless of what happens with Miguel, I’m not going to be venturing into that area again anytime soon.

Everytime we hopped out of the cab, he’d walk next to me, shoulder to shoulder. How did you get so tall?
I held up my foot, It’s the boots I said. He’s pretty short, only about 6’1.
We went to this kitschy little chinese resturant somewhre in New Buffalo and I had walked by him and kicked him in the ass with my foot sideways as I walked by. He started laughing.
The process to load steel takes a long time — we were laying in the back of the cab, spooning in the cab. We held hands and giggled listening to a local talk radio show on AM radio while the trailer rocked from the steel being loaded.
————–
“Did you ever write down ‘Lisa Dunkelberger’?” he asked me.
Yah, I said. All the time. When I was 17.
We laughed.
“My mother won’t like your tattoos.”
“Has Sarah met your mother.”
No he said and smiled. His mother lives in Guam and has been for years.
“not my problem.” I said and just looked at him.
“What will our kids say?”
“That mom was a cool ass bitch and daddy was a codgy old fuck.”
“You’re probably right.” and we laughed together.
“We are not even dating,” I said, “and you have us picking out china patterns!”
————–
I had brought my essays with me from Modern Cinema (I picked up my final and got an A on it). I explained the movies we watched and the questions and my answers and he was like “woah there Einstein!” All day he kept calling me Einstein. He loved it. He got all excited when we talked about Ameros Perros, Annie Hall and The Godfather.
————–
He has a girlfriend.
Sorta.
When he and I split up, he fucked around and met up with a woman 10 years his senior, who he ended up staying with for 7 years. Once that ended, He met up with Sarah, who is 12 years his junior. It’s not my place to say what occurred between them, but I will say that from his perspective, I got angry because of the way she treated him. Even went so far at one point to try and beat the shit out of him (and he stands about 6’1). He kicked her out and assumed she was going to move into her own apartment down the street and she ended up moving to Missouri with her mother. Lots of baggage. They broke up and he’s not happy but they have been talking again and were working on things but — the thing is, she’s in MO — of course things are great but he’s not happy, he doesn’t look happy and he told me more. He said he needed to tie up things with her. He was with her because she was familiar and comforting — despite everything.that had happened. “In short,” I said, “She’s asked you to put your life on hold?” “My life is not on hold.” “Yes it is.” He just looked at me for a long time and didn’t say anything.
————–
His cell phone is dead and he’s waiting for Nextel to replace it. He won’t have the phone on the road and i know that if the rest of the week is anything like today, I won’t hear from him until tonight. I already made the decision to spend the night, if he asks. No sex. Just sleeping. That will be the true test of intimacy. I just want to be with him.
This weekend, I’m going to my mom’s and he’s going to MO, which was already planned far in advanced. What happens after this weekend will be what will happen.
He told me, quite passionately, that he doesn’t want me out of his life again, no matter what happens after all of this is said and done. I thought about this and today I feel strong enough to handle that. On the other hand, I don’t know if I can handle that. Despite everything that was said and done, I had NO INTENTION of looking him up to shag. Danny was one thing, Miguel was another. I did not expect to still feel what I feel and I did not expect to still find him sexually attractive. That was a bonus. But come what may, this was the right decision. It makes me more free to move on.
————–
Miguel has nothing to do with the following.
I started making life plans more concrete. I have an appointment with a family realtor next week to buy a house here in GR. That has a been a decision that has been coming down the pipes for months. I’m tired of paying rent and the girls not having a place to call their own. I want a bedroom with red paint and a nifty headboard for my bed. I will still go to school until I graduate from Aquinas in 05. Hopefully with honors. I will still be taking the GRE’s in the spring and applying to grad school next fall. But I started talking to Miguel about my dream to open up my own coffee shop/book store again, one dream I’ve harbored for years and i want to do that too.
The world has suddenly all these possibilities.

kethryvis wrote me a very beautiful letter last night, which I need to reply to. She brought up many good points but what it comes down to right now, and things that justify_me and greentara said was about growth. This whole year has been about growth and while I can’t predict the outcome of what is to happen between him and I, I need to finish this in order to grow. I do. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to many, but the way I see it, sometimes you have to go back before you go forward. It’s about birth death and being reborn. He hit the nail on the head when he was telling about me about the movie Red Dragon, but not in the evil way he thinking of Ralph Fiennes character of becoming. We are always becoming.
We are dynamic creatures, we have to be.
He called me last night and we were on the phone for an hour. We talked about computers and I’m still tripping over that. He was impressed I got his computer working until — it died again. We talked about the world and everything inbetween. Found out he goes to the same coffee shop over by AQ which I just now started to frequent. How fucked would that have been to have gotten my double chocolate mint mocha to see him standing there.
No matter what happens, this is it. The end. Finis. Kethryvis pegged it in her letter to me. No more searching for people anymore in the past, it’s time to move forward to the future. But I do need to finish things with him on this and so far, I’ve been able to tell him everything as to the whys and the hows. When it’s done, I may shed some tears but I’ll be stronger than ever and able to continue to move forward.
I want you all to know I love you. I do. Thank you for everything, I can’t stop thinking how lucky I’ve been with having you guys here in my life.
—-
My hororscope has predicting a lot of things the last few days which have been running around this same thread of what has been happening with Miguel. It’s been dead on target so far. I’m amused to have found this about today:
Your Daily Horoscope for October 21, 2003
Dear lisa,
A romantic relationship, whether new or long-term, could be advanced today to the next level of commitment, lisa. The chemistry between the two of you is very strong, and you’re compatible on more than one level. And today you’ll experience passion like never before! Some intense but honest and very positive discussion about the future of the relationship is likely to take place today – followed by an intimate encounter.

I smell the same.
he freaked out when we hugged and he buried his face in my neck. He waved his wands and backed away like I was poison. You smell the same he said. Exactly the same. I can’t do this he said, I can’t touch you and not have you.
Up and down memory lane we went. He showed me a picture taken of him in Guam after we had started dating the first time and I couldn’t believe it was him I was 17. He was 18. I clutched the picture like it was going to be taken from me forever and stared at it. We went up and down. Up and down memory lane. Remember this I said? Remember that he said?
I was sitting in his leather chair and we were laughing and he looks at me all serious. I have missed you, he said. I have really missed you. Missed me how I used to be or missed me in general? I asked teasingly. I just have missed you — more than I thought or realised.
I smiled back at him.
You broke my heart you know.
I told him, remember? The phone calls? Remember when you called me up one night and told me you had just bagged a 40 year old and you were drunk? I said that? Yes. You did. I went on. I told him more.The cigarette nearly dropped out of his mouth. I would never say that. Yes, you did say that. Do you remember I said? No, he said, I don’t. I can’t believe when I would treat you that way.
Remember, I said, when you came up to when I was working at Dairy Mart and had two plane tickets, one for me — one for you. You wanted me to come back with you — back to guam you said. You wanted to be mine forever I said. I remember, he replied. I said no, I was with someone else now. Then I cried in the office when you left. I remember leaving and walking out in a huff he said. You cried? Yes. For days.
You broke my heart.
You’ve lost some of your innocence. He looked at me, rolling up the sleeve on my left arm. That’s a profound statement you’ve made. The tattoos and the piercings. Your innocence is what made you so mine. I’m still the same I said. It’s just buried way way deep inside. Why he said. Because, I was tired of people taking advantage of me. Tired of people using me. I was tired of believing everything. Protection. There is no mark on your body other than the eye of ra that offers protection. No, protection. The tattoos are protection. Why he said? People left me alone. They thought I was this huge bad ass. No one fucked with me. I liked it. I think tattoos are beautiful I said. People just left me alone. It was my big fuck you to the world. Just leave me alone. I almost started to cry.
He looked at my soul and had it on the table in under five seconds. You are the good girl. You were always the good girl. I am so sorry Lisa, for everything. He apologized. For what he said. What he did. For what others did.
I stared at him wide eyed and suddenly I wanted to rip everything off. The piercings, the pictures on the internet. The journal. Everything. Gone. I wanted it gone. I wanted to scream “That is not me — this i me.”
It always comes back to sex.
Ice cubes. Remember the ice cubes? You were the only girl who would use ice cubes when she would go down on me. And gave head while I drove. And swallowed. Wait, I thought I always swallowed. No, that was later. Are you sure I said? Yah. Remember, you called me, bold as brass and announced you swallowed. I did?? I was incredulous. I said that? He laughed. You don’t remember? No, I didn’t.
Come to bed with me, he said.
No, I replied petulantly.
Why?
No sex. No sex. No sex.
We won’t have sex.
That’s what you say but not what you think. I smiled.
You were the best sex I ever had.
I laughed. Stop lying. You don’t have to pretend.
No, I’m serious. Every girl after you wasn’t you.
I told my exes about you.
Water came spitting out of my mouth.
Yah, he teased, my ex from way back used to run circles.
Best sex of my life.
I kept laughing.
We were in love once, that is why it was so good. Was that it he said?
Yes, that is what it was.
Words were said. I remember him looking down at his tshirt. I stood up and pulled on my boots. I can’t be near you and not want you, I said. I can’t be casual. Been there, got the tshirt he said. He was trying to be a bad ass. No, I said. Can we still hang out. No, I said. I can’t be near you and not touch you. I can’t. It’s impossible. I put my coat on. He put his coat on. I grabbed him and we hugged. Jesus christ, you smell exactly the same. He tossed to me to the side. No, I said. Don’t stop. I can’t not be near you and not touch you.
He went upstairs to go to the bathroom before he walked me to the car. I sat on the couch, staring at my knees. This is it, I thought, I’ll never see him again. Ever. I’ve made my choice. I’m walking otu that door. He’s safe, though. he’s alive. He’s okay.
He lit a cigarette. He sat down. More words came out.
I leaned over and kissed him.
That was the end.
It was like coming home. Everything, his hair, his lips. Those fucking eyes that burned into my soul. I was dying inside. All the bullshit was gone and I was dying. We’d stare at each other.
I can’t believe you are here. You were gone and now you’re back. You will leave me again. No, I said tracing his lips. You left me. I know he said. I was irresponsible. I was dumb. I’m sorry Lisa.
We made it upstairs. I stuck to my guns. No sex. He has to be work at 8am. I was lying in bed, cradled in his arms and I was panicking. Flight. FLY AWAY. I have not slept with a man in nearly year. Not laid next to another human. FLY, FLY FLY AWAY back to your apartment to the safety of your books and your computer and tivo. FLY FLY AWAY. MOVE my brain was screaming.
So I did.
I crawled out of bed, and murmured that I was leaving. He told me to stay, stay he said. I can’t I said. I have to go. I can’t sleep. I was panicking hard. FLY FLY FLY my brain kept screaming.
I left.
—
He, incredulously, drives a big rig. Owns three trucks. Is doing very well — enough to drive an ’00 audi fully loaded TT. He wants to me to go with him on Tuesday on a run down to Chicago. I don’t know if I’ll hear from him after my departure. I have to talk to myself into that I’ll be okay. That I’ll live. That I’ve been okay these last 10 years. I said a lot of things tonight. I don’t regret them, but I kept telling him how he made me felt. How he made me feel. How he made me want to feel. The term “monogamous nympho” was coined because of him. My brain is screaming at me and my heart is torn in two.
I’m 17 again.