From : K
Sent : Wednesday, December 21, 2005 2:35 PM
To : M
Subject : just a quick note

m~

Just a quick note to let you know that the gifts for the boys arrived safely today. Thank you so much. It was thoughtful as usual and I'm sure they will be excited to open them. I had to hide them in the shower with the rest of the presents. [her cat] likes to open things early, so we can't put anything out until the last minute. He's worse than a two-year old....which is fine, since he's only 1 1/2. But next year....oooooh....he will not have that excuse going for him.

I hope you and E (and the rest of your families) have a nice Christmas. I'll be thinking of you.

love,
~k

Holy shit. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed after I got this email. Because I just didn't know what the FUCK to do with myself. Why was she being nice to me? And besides the point, why was she talking about "thinking of you" and "love"??? Why on EARTH would you say things like that to someone you JUST broke up with, unless you wanted them back?

Did she want me back? Did I want her back? Was this her way of determining how much I wanted her back? Did she want something from me? Some demonstration? I cried so hard for so long. And then the thought came to me that she had accused me of playing games, and it sounded to me like she wanted to play games with my head. See what I would do if she would dangle love in front of me once again. I didn't think I could cry any harder until that occurred to me.

Here's what I finally wrote her back:

On 12/21/05, M wrote:
I'm glad to hear the gifts arrived. I hope they like them.

As for the rest, I'm at a loss. While it is kind of you to wish me merry christmas, it is confusing to hear you tell me you will be thinking about me and sign off with love. I thought you wanted us to be "done". Is that not true?

Because I love you and I never stop thinking about you.

*m*

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm an idiot. A glutton for punishment. I decided that to just ask her WTF? would back her into a corner and piss her off. Again. So I gave her a concession: I let her know how I felt first.

Her response:

From : K
Sent : Wednesday, December 21, 2005 8:17 PM
To : M
Subject : Re: just a quick note

I want them to open the gift right away cuz they sounded noisy and I wanna know what's inside! But of course, I'll make them wait. In fact, they haven't seen the boxes at all....if they did, they'd be hounding me to open them. "open, open, open"

As for "love," I typically sign off that way with most people that I care about. Just because we are no longer a couple, does not instantly change my feelings for you. Part of me would like to remain friends because we've shared so much together, but I'm not sure that you are able to do that because with you it has always felt that it's all or nothing.

Anyway, of course I'll be thinking of you. I'm not the shallow, icy bitch you think I am.

~K

Friends? She wanted to be friends??? After everything we'd been through, she thought I could just stand on the sidelines and watch her get over me? Watch her flirt with other people? Watch her fall in love with someone else and just stand there and die another death? Being friends with an ex has never been successful for me, I don't think it's ever been successful for her, and the only "success" I know about is my husband's relationship with the woman who he cheated on me with in high school and I *hate* her now that I've found out about that.

So, more fucking tears, I said goodbye:

On 12/21/05, M wrote:
K, I'm in love with you. The idea that I will never again be able to play with your hair or kiss your lips or see that magical smile of yours just for me... it levels me to the ground. The only way it won't is to not be in love with you, and the only way to not be in love with you is to stay far, far away from you for a very, very long time.

I hope you are safe and happy one day soon. I love your children and wish I could stay in your life just for them, but for the sake of my sanity, I can't.

-M

And in response, a very short and not sweet final dig at me:

From : K
Sent : Thursday, December 22, 2005 8:44 AM
To : M
Subject : Re: just a quick note

Thanks for your honesty. That's all I ever asked for.

All of this has been pretty traumatic for me, so I've tucked it away before posting it here, trying to put it behind me and enjoy the holidays. But I just haven't been able to. I feel like something is missing in my life.

And I've noticed a couple of times that someone is surfing this diary regularly using an anonymous website. The only people I can think of who would do that are my husband and K. And since E knows where my diary is, has been asked to read it a lot since things started heading south with K, I'm pretty sure he has no reason to surf here anonymously. So fuck. She couldn't leave well enough alone and found my site *again*??? Even though we're through?

Pissed off, I went to read her blog for the first time since that last email arrived. I want to be away from her. But if she's reading this, I want to know. I thought she might have posted something for me there like she did after she said the breakup was on my head (whatever).

What's fascinating to see there first of all is that she's pissed at me for not wanting to be friends. She seems to think it's some unreasonable decision on my part, and amazingly selfish. Um, hello? Like totally tearing me a new asshole every email for a week despite me trying to calm you down and/or defend myself isn't selfish? And deciding that you're "done" because I went offline for 24 hours without responding to you isn't selfish? Ignoring my emails pleading that we meet or talk some way not via email isn't selfish as all fuck??? And how the FUCK is it unreasonable for me to want to get over someone who just ripped my heart out and stomped all the fuck over it? Being away from YOU, miss traipsing through my privacy, is the only way to get over you. And it will take a while. I never said it would take forever. I purposely left out the part about how it took me about 4 years to get over Pete and it's been 15 years and I'm still not over Richard. Because I can't bare to say goodbye forever.

And do you NOT realize that your "private" entries show up on your list when you title them? I find it awfully suspicious that you have entries titled she said/she said, just like me, that are private. And then there's the fact that within a day of me writing on my domain that my ex-girlfriend is "way off base", you write a private entry titled "she is a fucking cunt". Once again, I'm the bad guy for defending myself against your brutal, baseless, petty attacks???

If I really wanted to invade your privacy, I'm sure my husband could cook up something in about FIVE MINUTES that would allow me to read your private entries. But I don't even want to read your public ones. I only went over to see if you would confess to reading me or had thrown down some kind of public gauntlet that I should know about.

So stop fucking invading mine. Fuck already.