The 100 Girls, 100 Days Project

I can pretty much sum up three years with Kate in three words. New Years Eve. I met her a few days before New Years Eve in ’04, and the following years had very crappy December 31^sts with her.  We always made cute plans that went by the wayside when she was asleep or throwing up by 10.

That year wasn’t any different. Despite the time together, I still couldn’t get her to spend a Christmas with my family, despite my family taking her in and treating her better than they treated me. After a year a stocking with her name on it hung by the fireside where I grew up, and her family barely acknowledged my existence, or the fact we lived together.  I had sacrificed  or offered to sacrifice Thanksgivings, Easters, Christmases, road trips, and anything in between all for her and the pursuit of a smile on her face. But she still wouldn’t sacrifice a holiday after three, increasingly tedious years together.

But she promised me this year would be different. We’d have a good New Years, and she’d make up for blowing me off so callously lately. She was totally going to be in this relationship. And I bought it, because she was that good of an actress. And then it happened.

She made up some flimsy excuse about her brother wanting to spend it with her and so on. And I hit the wall, both literally and figuratively. I literally put a whole in a wall and messed my hand up. And then I realized that I shouldn’t be punching walls over a girl after three years. I was rash, and bitter, and mean when I ended it. I built up three years of grievances and knew what buttons to push so that, no matter happened, there was no going back. And it was over for real that time.

And I immediately regretted it and had the paranoid thought that I was the asshole in all of this. I was moody and in a rut for the last six months. Of course, I later discovered she was cheating on me for the last six or so months. And I spent the rest of the day was filled with punishing my liver and trying to black out three years instead of the three hours I would actually black out. And I didn’t wake into ’08, I came to.