Dear Ex

Posted by ANTM.

Dear Ex-Boyfriend,

You suck. I am one of the nicest people on the planet and I hate you. Seriously – I hate you. Right now, as I am writing this you are messaging me wondering what it is that you did to push me away.

In the beginning, things were bright and shiny like all new relationships are. I liked you. We moved in together. I started to question your judgment two months in when you allowed your ex-fiance to sleep over night in our house together. Without asking me first. I let it slide since she was pregnant and obviously over you but I should have left you right then.

I am 6 years younger than you and I was straight out of college when we started dating. You partied just as much as I did. Funny thing is, I gave up partying once I got a job two months after graduation. You are 31 now and still go out every weekend. Not just out for a few beers with the guys. It is more like drink as much alcohol as you can because it might be banned tomorrow kind of out. Then you decide it might be a good idea to come home and wake up your girlfriend for sex. Who really cares that she has to get up and work in two hours right? Remember the time you threw up all over the bathroom and woke me up at 3 am to clean it up? Classy…

I moved away for a while to give you some time to grow up. Not just down the street away either. I moved to a whole new country. You would call and write. Messages of how much you missed me and you wanted to get married. You wanted to have babies. You wanted to move away and start a life together. I was pretty convinced you had changed so I moved back to the very town I hated for you.

I signed a one year contract for a job that I cannot stand. Miranda from the Devil Wears Prada is totally my boss. Each day it takes every ounce of strength I have to prevent myself from stabbing her with my letter opener. You promised after one year we could move to a bigger city. You took me to a ring store to look at rings. Then something happened and you stopped all of that niceness. I should have known better but I guess I didn’t.

You started going out every weekend again. You stopped talking about marriage with me and instead started talking to every girl who would look at you. So you know what? I stopped talking to you. For one week – complete silence. Then my grandfather had a stroke. A bad one. I hadn’t slept in three days. It was the night before my family was going to turn off the machines. I was going to the hospital the next day to say good-bye. I cried myself to sleep that night. You went out and got drunk. Around 4:30 am, you came home, stripped off all of your clothes and woke me up. You asked if I could help you out. When I told you to get the hell away from me, do you know what you did? You laid on the floor next to the couch I was sleeping on and asked if I would just go down on you for a bit. I should have kicked you directly in the groin but I didn’t.

I moved out two weeks later and you still cannot seem to figure out why. Perhaps I am just a selfish bitch but in reality I think it has more to do with the fact that you are a child and I would like to be with a man. You don’t love me anyway. You just love the idea of me being around to do your laundry, wash your dishes, and clean up your vomit after a rough night at the bar. So you can pretty much go screw yourself…

Sincerely,

Your ex-girlfriend

P.S. You can stop with the damn messages that I don’t care about your feelings and how you just don’t understand how I could be so selfish because frankly, I don’t give a damn!

How Could You?

Posted by Anonymous.

How could you?

While we were at the ER, getting my husband's tachycardia treated with beta blockers, you called me. While I was sitting there wondering how he could possibly be this sick - whether it was a reaction due to the rare illness he thinks he has, or a simple panic attack - you were at my house thinking. You called me, and you asked if I knew what dexamethasone is. No, I said. You asked me if I knew about Cushing's Disease. I said yes, that's what my husband thinks he has. You said that you were concerned about some things.

Silly me, I thought that your husband had been looking on the computer and finding out information to try and HELP, because he is a smart man and maybe he would like to help out.

How could you?

When we walked in the door, you were both sitting on the couch. You said we needed to talk because there were some things you were concerned about. At that point, I could tell that you weren't going to say anything helpful.

I thought that you were going to have a talk with us. At the worst, I thought you'd accuse him of being a hypochondriac who tries to self diagnose himself on the internet. At the worst, I thought you'd try to intervene, saying he needed to stop and just see a doctor and let the doctors decide. At the worst, I thought you'd make me feel embarrassed for letting him go on about this illness that he is convinced his symptoms fit.

How could you?

I could not believe my ears. You asked about the prescription bottle of dexamethasone on the desk. For a minute I was confused, then realized that you were talking about a bottle of CAT MEDICINE. Medicine that the vet prescribed to our cat this summer to try and treat his huge fucking ear infection that keeps coming back. You asked if my HUSBAND had been EXPERIMENTING on himself, if he had taken the steroids that were prescribed to my CAT to try and test himself for Cushing's Disease. Have you been experimenting on yourself? you asked. It is the exact steroid they use to test for Cushing's - do you see how that looks to us?

HOW COULD YOU?

How could you look at me like that? How could you ask me several times about the drugs even after I disbelievingly said that those were the cat's pills, that they've been sitting untouched on that desk for six months? How could you look back and forth between us and ask if we could see why you'd be concerned? How could you accuse my husband of experimenting on his own body like that?

YES, he mentioned that he'd been testing a theory. Do you know what he MEANT by that? The ONLY thing he did differently today was eat a BIGGER DINNER than normal. That was his big, scary test. Well, it seemed to work, better than he'd thought. No, he could not have forseen that taking his normal ADD meds, then drinking some soda (things he does every day) then eating Thanksgiving dinner would send him to the hospital with a VERY high heart rate and blood pressure, dizziness, shaking and practically fainting.

How could you think that he would take unprescribed steroid medication, medication that was prescribed to an ANIMAL? How could you think that my husband would put himself at THAT kind of risk? Even if he did, how could you think he would do that TODAY, on Thanksgiving, when we were going to be around family. Come on, we're smarter than that. If we wanted to hide something from you, we would DAMN WELL hide it. How could you think I would let him do that under my roof, when we have a child? How could you, after all these years, so misjudge both of us?

How could you accuse him of putting himself at risk that way?

How could you look at me like that, and think I was LYING to you?

How could you make me feel so stupid? So untrusted? So childlike?

How could you put me in this place where I sobbed after you left, and now I don't know what to do, if I should tell you how much you hurt me, how much you added to the stress of an already stressful day, month, year...?

How?

Dear Neighbor

Posted by Sarah.

Dear Neighbor,

You may find this upsetting but I feel like I need to be honest with you.

The state of my yard is so far down my list of priorities that it isn't even on the front of the piece of paper.

In all honesty I couldn't give a rats ass if there are leaves in my "flower beds". It is Fall. They decided to call it fall because of all of the leaves that continue to fall off of the trees. I have neither the time nor the inclination to rake or blow my yard every day.

Heh. I said blow my yard.

Seriously, I have two children, I work, I go to the grocery store five times a week, I haul my kids back and forth to preschool four days a week, it is football season, Gabe works 60 hours weeks (at least) and I have to still eat, sleep and blog.

I just don't care.

I know it bugs you. Otherwise why would you come over here and tell us that we need to move our car so that the leaf sucking truck can pick up our leaves?

We're not stupid. We're not even really lazy. We just have other things to do first.

Like 50 loads of laundry.

I know you think you are better than me and I am fine with that. You are much better at yard work. For all I know you might even have all of your laundry folded and put away.

The thing is, I don't care. I don't care about your yard. I don't care about my yard. We keep it mowed and I don't have any cars on my lawn or large appliance out by the curb. A few leaves aren't going to kill anybody. They aren't even going to affect your property values.

I don't begrudge you your well manicured bushes and mulch. I just want you to understand that I would rather spend 20 minutes explaining to you that I don't give a shit than I would go outside and rake.

How do I know what is under those leaves? That crap freaks me out. What if there is a snake in there or something?

In short I'm sorry it bugs you but not sorry enough to make a special effort just because you keep coming over here dropping no-so-subtle hints. In fact, that just makes me want to do it less. I've just replaced #37 rake with #38 finish watching first season of Mad Men.

Love,

Sarah

____

I originally wrote this for my own blog, but then I got really paranoid. I figure that the neighbor that does my yard work and peeks in my window is exactly the sort of person who would be doing a Google search on my name and reading my blog obsessively to see if I was writing about her. After that it took me about 15 seconds to think of "The Basement".

Suffocating

Posted by Anonymous.

I went to seek drugs, because I need them desperately. They said, “you are exhibiting drug-seeking behavior. We will give you nothing.” Well, Sherlock... My aunt has the same illness I do, and has been sending me Xanax in the mail. I ran out, and I don’t want to ask her for any more. It makes me feel dirty and exploitive. So now I just scream into my sweater for hours.

I hate everything about college. I hate New York, I hate my classes, I hate the idea of transferring again. I don’t even want to be a writer anymore. It was all so fluid before; I only wrote when I had something to say. Now I have to write constantly, all the time, about things that I don’t care about, and it’s all crap, which makes me feel bad about myself, so then I go spend all of my money on alcohol and cab fare. I miss Colorado so much it makes my skin burn to think about it. All of my friends here are so glamorous; and they think that I am too, but really, I’m not. I read books and listen to decent music and know how to dress myself coherently. If that’s all it takes to be glamorous, than people should stop spending so much time reading up on it in Vogue. I will never be glamorous for real, because I am never going to be calm when I meet a famous person. I've become good at pretending, but the whole time I was talking to John Mayer I wanted to throw up. Also, John Mayer is an asshole. They are all assholes. Nobody here is normal. They get vodka companies to sponsor their birthday parties and then rent out some venue and fill it with people they don't know. I am constantly surrounded on all sides by strangers, and they have their faces pressed against mine in the photos the next day. Fuck you. I don't even know your last name, or what makes you laugh. You seem to be laughing always, with your head thrown back like someone punched you in the spine. Nothing is funny. Don't worry, everyone is looking. Being suffocated by people is the most frustrating way to be alone.

I was crying uncontrollably the other day, and M. said, “You just have to not do that.” Right. Because that’s how bipolar disorder works; you just stop. God, why didn’t I think of that? M. has allergies that are so severe she has to carry around an epi pen with her, and I wanted to say, “The next time someone accidentally feeds you a tomato, you should just not swell like that. Seriously, just stop.” But that would be terrible and mean, so I didn’t.

It’s lucky that I only live on the third floor of my building, because if I lived high enough that I’d for sure die on impact, I’d totally jump off of my fire escape.

Dear House Guest

Posted by Anonymous

Dear House Guest,

I’m not a person who thinks this about kids very often, at all. But. Your daughter is a brat. I won’t have her pouting and ruining the fun for everyone else while you are here for the next two weeks, so yes, I will be continuing to say things to her to let her know that her behavior is unacceptable. Sorry you don’t like it – but really? I can’t believe that among all our extended family, nobody says anything to her or to you about it. You’re in my house now – so I’m saying something. My kid has started copying her pouting, victim, whiney, everybody-is-to-blame, zero-responsibility, I’m-the-center-of-the-universe thing, and I’m just not going to have it. By the time you leave, she’ll at least know what she can’t get away with in this household. And hopefully I’ll set an example for you, her mother, of what she can’t get away with in the real world.

I also wanted to talk to you about that wishy-washy thing you do when I ask you what you’d like to do each day. This vacation is for you, not for me. Just answer the fucking question, ok? Don’t leave it up to me to guess what you would like to see and do in the big city. When I give you a list of 10 options, pick one, and we’ll go with it. If you do that crap again today, we’re going to stay home. I’ll sit right here and work, and you can watch TV, entertain my kids, do my laundry, make dinner for everyone and then clean up afterwards! That sounds like an awesome vacation to me. That would be my choice. So, seriously. Fucking pick something.

One last thing, as long as I’m writing a letter to you that you are never going to read. I fully understand that it is 8am right now, where you live, and that you went to bed really early last night. But it is 6am here. So shut the fuck up.

When I came out and asked you to please not clink your spoons like that and to keep your voices down, because it had just woken me up and I didn’t want it to wake up the kids – and you said, “There were no spoons! You imagined it! Go back to sleep!” That shit was not funny. At all. I tried to go to back to sleep, but I was too pissed off at your non-funny “joke.”

Then, when I came out to get a cup of coffee too, and you cracked another covert joke about how I looked like I needed some sleep? Not funny. When I said, “That’s really not funny, the “humor” is actually pissing me off, so I can’t sleep.” And you looked all horrified? That’s nothing compared to what I wanted to say to you. So suck it up and be happy that I didn’t tell you to fuck off.

In about half an hour, I’m probably going to feel like I should apologize to you, in order to keep the peace and let you have a pleasant vacation. And I’ll do that. Then I’ll decide what you want to do today, and I’ll pack us all a lunch and load up the van so we can go. I’m a nice person, see? I take responsibility for the feelings of those around me. I don’t think I’m the center of the universe. I don’t whine and act like a victim. I don’t pout and blame other people for the situations I find myself in. Oh wait. This sounds familiar. I’m beginning to see why your daughter gets away with all that.

Ten more days!

Love,

Me