I Still Have That Other Girl in My Head

August 15, 2003
12:20 A.M.

The title of this post was taken from the Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach album Painted from Memory

Alright, what’s the friggin’ deal? Yesterday would have been an anniversary of sorts. You know…one of those “anniversaries” that couples celebrate every month?

Last October, on the 14th, I ended a relationship that had been going since March of 1995. Why am I still struggling?!? It's been almost a year now, but I still hurt so badly that I can't even think about asking anyone else out now.

It was my first serious relationship. I had hoped to have married this wonderful lady (and, yes, if you ever happen to read this, I still consider you a wonderful lady, even though I was a “drama queen” to you near the end), but the relationship hit a wall. And I never knew how to get around it. I had even proposed to her….was shopping for a ring, a good year and a half before I broke up with her.

I was totally serious. I’ve never been in love like that before…I’ve never been as close (or so I thought) to the one I had loved before.

I can honestly say that I loved Amy…I appreciated her presence in my life. She was wonderful to talk to, which I did almost every weekend (twice a weekend sometimes) for about two years. She brightened my weeks, just by spending a couple hours a day on the phone with me on Saturdays and Sundays. But Amy and I never got to date. Ever. We didn’t have a little over seven and a half years actually seeing each other. It was every bit as hard getting over her as it is getting over the one I left last October. And the one I just left, come to think of it, never could spend much more than 20 or 30 minutes on the phone with me without being distracted by some thing or another.

In fact, she would get angry if I asked her to at least turn the television down. It was her way of relaxing, she would tell me. So, I never would come right out and ask her to turn it off. I have no idea what she would have said to me if I said that.

I remember a couple of times in the beginning of our relationship when she would get distracted by one of her cats getting into something that it shouldn’t. Now, I’d be talking to her about something, usually about making plans to get together or some such thing, and she’d drop the phone shouting “NO!”

I would actually hear the phone hit the counter, and hear her running off…while I was in mid-thought. On these occasions (yes, there were WAY more than ONE) I could stay on the phone for a half an hour after that…waiting for her to get back from what she was doing. More often than not, I would hear one of her parents, sometimes her sister, pick up the phone and say, “Why is the phone off the hook?” They would hang up before they even checked to see if there was anyone on the other end.

So, I would call back…laughing!…and ask her what had happened.

It was usually something like, “Oh, one of the cats was trying to get into the soup on the stove.”

“Well,” I’d say, “I was waiting for you to get back!” I would still be laughing at this point…the first couple of times, that is.

She’d say, “Oh. I just forgot I was on the phone with you.”

Even that first time, I thought to myself, “Oooooookkkkaaaaaayyyy!” I didn’t have the guts to say that until much later.

After it had happened a couple more times, she finally told me, “Ok, if I do that again, just hang up and call me back.”

I tried. Once.

Oh
My
God!

The phone was busy for an hour after that. And, by the time it had gotten returned to the hanger, she had gone somewhere.

The things we put up with when we’re in love.

And I was in love with her. I still am. I had gotten so used to her being distracted that it no longer bothered me as much as it had at one time. It still annoyed me that I had to compete with the Talking Lamp for her attention…but I fell in love, I suppose, with the person I thought she could become. She is a very talented photographer/painter. I had hoped to be around when she finally opened her own studio. I still look for that to happen. I will be bitterly disappointed if it doesn’t, even though I know I will not be in her life the way I had wanted to at one point.

I always go for creative women.

I will again, one day. Once I’ve gotten through this. I know throughout this whole post I’ve been saying “get over,” but I think “get through” is more appropriate.

I still haven’t “gotten over” Amy. I probably never will.

Same with the one I was mourning silently yesterday.